# Project proposal: _your project title_

> A template for the 1–2 page proposal described in [Undergraduate Research](https://viveks.bee.cornell.edu/lab-manual/procedures/undergrad.html).
>
> **This is a first draft, not a contract.** It will change once you and Vivek discuss it, and you are not expected to have thought through every detail or to have done a literature review. The point is to show that you have thought about what you would like to research and why.
>
> Delete these instruction blocks as you go. Keep it to 1–2 pages.

**Your name:**
**Course you're enrolling in:** BEE 4970 / BEE 4990 / BEE 4993
**Semester and credit hours:**

## What I want to work on

> A few sentences. What is the question or problem? You do not need it precisely framed yet — a clear description of the area and what interests you about it is enough.

## Why this interests me

> The part people skip, and the part that is actually most useful. How did you come across this? How does it connect to what you want to do after graduating, or to a course that got your attention? Write in your own voice.

## What I think I would do

> Roughly: what data or model, what you would try first, what a result might look like. Being wrong here costs nothing. Having thought about it at all is the signal.

## What I already know how to do

> Relevant coursework, programming languages, anything you have built. Be honest about the level — this is used to scope the project so it fits you, not to screen you out.

## What I would need to learn

> And a guess at how you would learn it. Nobody arrives knowing everything the project needs.

## Time

> Your credit hours times three is the expected weekly hours. What else is on your plate this semester — heavy prelim weeks, a job, a sport?

## Why Vivek

> How does this connect to the group's work? You are not expected to have read the papers closely, but a sentence on which part of what the group does overlaps with your interest is worth including.