I'm trying to prepare for undergraduate research by reading papers that are similar to what I will be working on, but I am having trouble understanding much of what I am reading. I have taken one econometrics course and next semester will be aiding a professor in a project applying econometrics. I want to be more well versed in the subject so I can be of bigger help but the papers I'm reading I really don't understand. Some of them I understand partly and others not at all, does this mean I'm unprepared or is this normal for undergraduate researchers? I haven't participated in research before this and I'm getting some feelings of imposter syndrome before I even begin.