Hi all, I am currently embarking on my first research project under the direction of a very well respected professor in my field, and a former TA turned postdoc scientist who was my tutor back at the very start of my program in a very heavily mathematical/computational field.
My question is, if you were in their shoes, other than generally doing what I say to them I will and making an effort/managing my own time and self well etc. What expectations would you have in terms of contributions to the work they are doing? I am hopeful that I will be be able to contribute something somewhat meaningful to their work – but this is my first research project in a specific area I am not the most familiar with right now. The prof also said this could very well turn into a masters thesis if I am still interested after the research project, which right now I am very motivated to take him up on, but I know that motivation is much easier found at the start of a project than half way through.
Tl;Dr: How meaningful/useful would you expect the output of the work from an MSc student in a single-semester research project to be to your larger project going forward? Would you expect a publishable output, maybe just confirm if an idea is worth pursuing or not, or would you treat it as a training wheels project and if anything of use comes out of it, that’s a bonus?