If you are a high school student looking to build skills that can help you stand out in college or just explore your interests in a structured way, consider engaging in research. Research can offer a unique platform to dive into a niche topic, examine open-ended questions, communicate your ideas, and use data to tackle real problems.

If you're a high school student interested in medicine, biology, public health, or biomedical engineering, completing a disease research project can be an effective way to explore these fields in depth. Independent research allows you to investigate questions that may not be covered in a traditional classroom setting while developing analytical, writing, and problem-solving skills.

A summer research program asks a lot more of a student than most classes do: pick a real question, spend weeks investigating it, and be ready to defend what you found. That is precisely why it tends to leave a deeper mark than a typical summer activity.