What is a UROP?

The most definitive source on the program is the official UROP website. But in short:

“The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program at MIT (UROP) gives undergraduate students the opportunity to collaborate on and contribute to real research across MIT. It’s a unique, hands-on way to pursue your passions, find new interests, or explore different majors.”

A UROP is unlike any other experience at MIT. Even if you are not interested in pursuing research professionally, you should consider doing a UROP for at least one term (semester or summer) in your undergraduate career.

Colloquially, the word “UROP” is used as a verb, a noun, or a reference to a person. For example:

• “I spent a few hours UROPing last night.”
• “I finally got a UROP!”
• “She’s also a UROP in my lab.”

Why UROP?

There are many reasons why we’d recommend pursuing a UROP. Some of which are the following:

• You get to work at the cutting edge of research.
• You can experience what it’s like to be a professional scientist, engineer, or scholar.
• You can decide if research is for you…or not.
• You can receive mentorship from world-leading experts and build connections with them.
• You can apply the skills you learn in class to “real-world” problems.
• You can learn skills that you don’t normally learn in class such as setting up lasers in an optics table, doing data analysis for a large experiment, programming a quantum computer, giving a research presentation, and so on.
• You can get paid while learning 🤑