It has a door, the door has a handle, and almost nobody shows students where it is. Four sessions to get you either into somebody else’s lab or into a project of your own that ends in something real.
If $1,200 is not possible, write to me and say what is. I keep a few reduced places open each cycle for students who would otherwise not be here.
You have worked out that research matters — for graduate school, for the kind of job you want, for the sheer fact of having made something. And then you hit the same wall everyone hits: there is no application form. Nobody posts the opening. The people who have it seem to have always had it.
So you send fifteen emails to professors and hear nothing back, and quietly conclude that you were not good enough. In almost every case that is the wrong conclusion. The emails were wrong: sent to the wrong people, at the wrong time of year, asking for the wrong thing, in a form that gave a busy person no reason to reply.
Or you go the other way and decide to do something yourself, and stall — because "do research" is not a task, and nobody has told you what the first actual unit of work is, or how big a first project should be, or what it means for something to be finished.
Both of those are fixable, and neither of them is about talent. This package fixes them in the order they need fixing.
Four sessions, roughly every two weeks, with work between them. We move at the speed of what you actually get done.
Your background, any coursework or projects that count, what you are curious about, and any emails you have already sent. I want to see the ones that did not work — they are the most informative thing you have.
What you are actually interested in, stated narrowly enough to act on. What you can already do, what you would need to learn, and which of the two routes — join a lab, or start your own project — fits your situation this term. We leave with a shortlist of real people and real programs.
You read enough of two or three groups’ recent work to have an opinion about it. Not to master it — to be able to say one specific, true thing about it. That one sentence is what makes an email answerable.
We write the actual email to the actual professor or program, line by line, and I explain what each line is doing. We cover timing, who to send it to, what to attach, what to ask for, and what to do about the silence that usually follows the first send.
Whether you got a lab or are going alone, you now need a problem. We pick one small enough that you can finish it and real enough that finishing it matters, and we write down what "done" means before you start — which is the step almost everyone skips.
How a paper is actually put together, what reviewers look for, how venues and deadlines work, what a workshop paper is and why it is often the right first target. Plus what to do when the result is negative or the project stalls, because that is the normal case and it is not the end of it.
For the short things that should not wait two weeks — a reply you are not sure how to answer, a result you are not sure how to read, a deadline you just found.
Things you can act on, not things you have to remember.
Named labs, groups and programs that would plausibly take someone at your stage, with the reason each one is on the list.
Written with you, sent by you, with a follow-up sequence for the silence that usually comes first.
One problem, a definition of done, and the order the pieces get built in.
Which venues are realistic for a first piece of work, when their deadlines fall, and what a submission has to contain.
If after the first session you do not think this is going to be worth the remaining three, tell me and I refund the balance. You keep everything from session one.
What I won't promise is the outcome itself — a place in a lab, an offer, an acceptance, a specific number. Those are decided by people I don't control. Anyone guaranteeing you one is guaranteeing something that isn't theirs to give. What I will promise is that the parts within your control will be done properly, and that you'll know why each one is the way it is.
That is where my own depth is, so that is where I can be most specific about venues, norms and what reviewers want. The mechanics — finding groups, the cold email, scoping a first problem, getting to an output — carry across fields, and I have watched them work in several. If your field is far enough from mine that I cannot add real value, I will say so before you pay rather than after.
Yes, and the routes are different from the undergrad ones — structured summer programs, local university groups, and independent projects that do not need a lab. We spend the first session working out which of those is realistic where you live and what you can already do. I speak with a parent before starting with anyone under 18.
That is a normal outcome of a first round and it is planned for, not treated as a failure. The second route — your own project — does not depend on anyone saying yes, and for a lot of students it ends up producing the stronger result because they own the whole thing.
Almost certainly not, and anyone promising that is selling you something. Papers take months. What you will have is a project underway, a clear definition of finished, and a target venue with a date on it. The four sessions get you to the point where continuing is a matter of work rather than of knowing what to do.
Usually every two weeks, and the package normally runs six to ten weeks. The gaps are where the work happens, so pushing them closer together makes the package worse, not faster.
$1,200 for four sessions over six to ten weeks, with email between. Paid at booking, and refundable after session one if it is not going to be worth it.
Pay and book — $1,200Not sure this is the right one? Book the 90-minute session first and we will work it out there.