Research is mostly the slow, unglamorous work between the moments that make it into a paper. Here’s what that looked like for me at the University of Toronto.
The lab
I worked as a [research assistant / undergraduate researcher / thesis student] in [lab name / group], supervised by [professor / PI] at the University of Toronto, from [start date] to [end date]. The group focuses on [broad research area, e.g. machine learning, systems, HCI, computational biology].
The problem
The project I worked on asked: [the research question in one sentence]. This mattered because [why the problem is interesting / what gap it addresses].
My specific focus was [your sub-problem / angle].
What I worked on
Day to day, I:
- Built / implemented [system, model, pipeline, or experiment].
- Ran experiments on [dataset / setup / hardware] to evaluate [metric / hypothesis].
- Read and reviewed literature on [subfield].
- Collaborated with [other students / postdocs] on [shared component].
| Phase | Activity | Tools / methods |
|---|---|---|
| Exploration | [literature review / baselines] | [tools] |
| Build | [implementation] | [languages / frameworks] |
| Evaluate | [experiments] | [datasets / metrics] |
What came out of it
- [Outcome — paper, poster, workshop submission, internal report] at [venue / date].
- [Result or finding, e.g. improved X by Y%, or a negative result that ruled out Z].
- [Skills gained — research methodology, a technique, scientific writing].
Reflections
The hardest part was [challenge — reproducing results, scope, ambiguity]. What I’d tell my earlier self: [lesson learned].
All bracketed items are placeholders — fill in the real lab, supervisor, topic, and outcomes.