[cjslep]

> Undergrads are often assigned boring research jobs and are paid less.

I agree paid less, but disagree about "boring" research jobs. It probably depends on your school and your major. Nuclear Engineering at NC State got me to research molecular dynamics GPU techniques (this was around 2010) to simulate rare events (such as radiation-resistant material interactions) in order to get real-world simulation times to the order of milliseconds, which is a whopping 1000x speedup from the usual microseconds. I got access to the school's supercomputers just like any other physics grad.

My work later moved to the CASL (Consortium for Advanced Simulation of LWRs[0]) umbrella, and I was not the only one. None of the topics were boring, and the general impression I got from the department head was that undergrads were as capable but just requiring slightly more guidance.

It was a great funnel for getting undergrads to continue their research to grad school and ultimately to a PhD. I did not continue, but still have several friends that are pursuing their PhDs.

[0] http://www.casl.gov/