<p>I posted this in the internships forum, but i wanted to get an engineer's perspective.</p>
<p>I am a freshmen mechanical engineering student and will be participating in the REU program at the university of Alabama this summer. I was just wondering, what types of clothes should I pack? How formal do I need to be? The only thing they told me is to wear closed toe shoes in the lab.</p>
<p>its gonna be hot in alabama, so normally i would wear shorts, but should i be a little more formal and wear pants? also, for tops, should i maybe wear polos or something?</p>
<p>You should contact your REU advisor for lab attire, that will be your day-to-day wear - I have never seen a lab that forbade open-toed shoes but allowed shorts. Most labs will recommend jeans and a t-shirt while working - college students are not expected to be particularly formal, especially in a lab setting.</p>
<p>You should bring a couple of polos or button-down shirts along with a couple of pairs of slacks for company tours and the like. Bring a suit for your final presentation. Evenings and weekends you can wear whatever you choose.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, my lab requires closed-toe shoes and recommends but does not require long pants. I regularly wear shorts starting in April and ending in about September. Texas is hot. Haha. YMMV</p>
<p>I work for the USDA Forest Service (government job, not private sector) in South Carolina and do a combination of field and office work. For me, a polo and jeans works most days. I’d plan on wearing long pants. It’s getting really warm (90s this week) and I’ve yet to see anyone wear shorts but it may be a different situation in Alabama.</p>
<p>You’ll figure out what is expected of you there during the first week. If you really want to know, give them a call and find out!</p>
<p>As a former chemistry teacher, and having a son who attends Bama and had to take chemistry at a local (New Orleans) college last summer, I can tell you, anytime you are in the lab, wear jeans/long pants. As for tops, just tshirts should be fine, and will keep you cool as you walk the big campus. </p>
<p>You should also purchase a good pair of lab goggles, although I’m hoping your internship will provide you some. Bring shorts for non lab days and a nice dress for end of session presentation. Bring nice tops to wear with your jeans or nice shorts if you go out at night. </p>
<p>Bring a swimsuit, too, as the outdoor pool with the lazy river should be open this summer. You’ll probably get an ACT card for the summer which should provide you access to the rec center. Good luck and keep us posted on your internship! And congratulations!</p>
<p>You guys are making assumptions about what kind of work he will be doing. What if his research is entirely computational, for example? He hasn’t really told us what he will be doing and therefore we can’t really answer other than wild guesses.</p>
<p>^^^Good point, bone. If she is not working with chemicals, she won’t need the safety wear. But, since there was a mention of closed toed shoes, I would assume she may be working near potential chemical spills, or perhaps heavy equipment.</p>
<p>My son does research during the school year with a mech eng professor, and he wears shorts once it gets warm. He does mostly computational work, but there is some assembly of small equipment involved.</p>
<p>Always dress slightly better than the rest of your coworkers. </p>
<p>Also, lab work requiring closed toe shoes will require pants, I wouldn’t wear jeans to a job unless I am doing field labor. Jeans and T-shirts are acceptable on Fridays, but if you value yourself and your career I still wouldn’t on Fridays. Always wear a shirt with a collar, one that can be tucked in is best.</p>
<p>I have dress shoes at work incase I need them (VP or higher meeting or outside customers). I wear slacks, a nice button down shirt, and steel toed boots. On fridays I wear a polo type shirt with cargo pants or slacks.</p>
<p>This is important. If you take yourself seriously and dress the part you are going to advance in your profession faster than if you don’t. This is true and I have seen it in action many times over.</p>
<p>Very true. Pretty much everyone in my lab wears jeans, beat up khakis, or cargo pants. We don’t deal with many chemicals, but we do have lots of oils (machining, cutting fluid, polishing), metal powders (they do NOT come out of clothes), and other such things that stain clothes really easily. Even if you wear a lab coat your clothes underneath still manage to get dirty, so cheap silk-screened t-shirts and a pair of pants you don’t mind getting dirty are the preferred wear here.</p>
<p>However, when I make trips up to a nearby government research center I always dress a little nicer (usually at least throwing on a button-up shirt, even though they have a tendency to get snagged on things in the lab sometimes) since I often meet non-technical people who seem to value appearance more than fellow experimentalists.</p>
<p>Haha, yeah, that’s actually the rule in my lab as well. But I agree, not the most common, perhaps! </p>
<p>First, congrats on the REU. As others have said, I think day-to-day should be very casual, but definitely don’t forget to bring a few nice outfits as well.</p>
<p>oh i forgot to specify that im a girl lol i suppose that makes a difference when it comes to attire! lol. and actually, i dont really know much about what ill be doing yet. i dont know much about what setting it will be or what my job will be…</p>