from a previous directed study student:
"If you plan to go to a graduate school, quickly step into your preferred
research areas and gain some research experience early in your
undergraduate level, I suggest you take a special and useful course --
Directed Study.
Directed Study gives students interested in some question or subject matter
an opportunity to explore it in more detail, under faculty guidance, for
credit. I took my first Directed Study in my 4th year. It provided me the
first chance to closely cooperate and work with research faculty in the
undergraduate level. In Directed Study, you are able to choose your
preferred professor and participate in his/her research. Generally, it is
mostly like a warm-up research training before the graduate school. It
provides an opportunity for your preferred professors to get familiar with
you and may be even strongly impressed by you. I heard a lot of my friends
were admitted by their preferred supervisors after they had done some
research with them. Actually, I got one of my graduate school offers by
doing a Directed Study course.
In addition, as you all know that being admitted by a graduate school is
very competitive, Directed Study is such a course/training to improve your
background, develop your ability and potential and present your talent to
research faculty members. The research experience you gained from Directed
Study is an asset for you to apply for graduate schools in that graduate
committee prefers applicants who have research experience. Concretely
speaking, for graduate school admission, GPA is like a “Kernelâ€