<p>Does all of that actually help or does it dig into your research time?</p>
<p>well, the safety training was definitely important, and the symposiums were informative. The practice lab and the short sessions were a little bit annoying though in my opinion.</p>
<p>@Catbye If a professor does not choose you to work at his laboratory during the symposiums, where do you do your research?</p>
<p>@Catbye Also, was there a Young Scholars Program Option Form in your acceptance packet? Should I participate in that?</p>
<p>if a professor doesn’t choose you, you will eventually be divided into groups based on your preferences of where you would like to do research. From there, whomever is in your field of study (research undergrads, grad students, mentors) will help you.</p>
<p>I guess you mind as well go for the Young Scholars Program. It doesn’t affect your summer experience at all, but you can request your transcript for the program in December. I think it gives you some sort of college credit for going to Garcia, but it might only apply if you’re going to Stony Brook (don’t quote me on that). I did it last year, and I requested the transcript, but it’s still sitting in my binder because I didn’t give it to my guidance counselor or anything -.-"</p>
<p>@Catbye Oh so you don’t necessarily work at Stony Brook? What is entailed to participate in the Young Scholars Program and what more do I have to do than I would just doing the Garcia Program? Do I have to take extra classes?</p>
<p>Nope, you don’t work at Stony Brook and you don’t participate in any extra classes/activities. It basically gives you student access to Stony Brook resources until December (such as permission to access journal articles on pubmed that would originally be locked unless you pay for them).</p>
<p>Oh, so where do you work exactly? What if a professor doesn’t choose me to work? :o</p>
<p>oh oops, sorry to mislead you, I meant that you don’t work at Stony Brook for the Young Scholar’s Program. You DO work on the campus for Garcia :P</p>
<p>As I said before, if a professor doesn’t choose you specifically for their research, you will get to choose a topic and area of interest sometime in the second or third week. There, you work alongside research undergraduates and graduate students and professors who are in the same field of study.</p>
<p>you work in either the Old Engineering Building or the Heavy Engineering Building.</p>
<p>So if I come up with a research idea, how much will mentors/professors aid me in designing a prize-winning/viable experiment?</p>
<p>You should talk to Dr. Miriam Rafailovich. She will definitely help you! The research undergraduates and graduate students are also really helpful.</p>
<p>Miriam is really hard to get in touch with and it’s difficult to get her one-on-one without waiting forever, but it’s worth waiting the hours at her house/at the lab to talk to her and everything she says helps so much. Also, the students help so much! Your undergrad (REU) will help you with paper review and helping you accomplish everything with your project. If you are patient and play it right, garcia can lead to patents, publications, and science competition wins. Good luck!</p>
<p>@Catbye were you an Intel finalist? I remember seeing your project at the public day :)</p>
<p>Does any one know the cost of room and board? thanks</p>
<p>I think it’s about $2700 for room and board, and then $1,000 to participate in the program. Some students commute each day to save money and have nights at home.</p>
<p>Chemosaurus, Have you attended Garcia program? Care to explain how your experience was?</p>