INTRODUCTION: The development of a research project - using appropriate methodology - provides students the opportunity to build skills and abilities that will contribute to their personal enrichment and, later on, to their professional. To be up to date, the students must be able to seek new knowledge of quality, critically analyzing the available literature. The practice of research is an opportunity to practice the ethical aspects pertaining to intellectual property and to research with humans. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to know the evaluation, by the medical students, of the activity Research Project for Course Completion (Trabalho de Conclusão de Curso - TCC) as final stage of the undergraduate research axis. METHODS: Quantitative and qualitative research. Quantitative data (which can describe the sample profile) were collected through questionnaires applied to 42 (100%) students in the class of an initial course of medicine that uses active methodology of teaching and learning. - Information from the questionnaires evaluating these students, filled out by the 32 advisors involved in the TCC, was also used. The qualitative approach involved interviews conducted via the Internet, with 8 students (19.0%). Quantitative data were analyzed using measures of central tendency. The technique for Construction of Collective Subject Discourse from key expressions and main ideas of individual speeches was used for qualitative data analysis. RESULTS/CONCLUSIONS: The experiences of scientific initiation and of developing their project were considered important by the students, both for their practice as "interns", as for their professional lives. They indicated that the main strengths of these experiences were: to develop the abilities to search, select and critique scientific articles; to get skills for research projects preparation, reading papers in foreign languages, statistical analysis and public presentation.