Can you share the path you or your student took in college prior to science PhD grad school? What kinds of lab or research experience did you/they get in the summer? Is it normal / okay to wait until sophomore year to start? I feel like so many start in high school these days, at least here in CC land…
My D is in her first year as biology major at a top 10 LAC. She plans to minor in math and is interested in the intersection between these two fields and also very interested in plant biology.
Her college won’t let majors use AP credit to get out of the 2 intro courses so she’s taking her second one of those now. She’s not done any research on campus this year – I don’t know if there are opportunities that she’s let go by or not. Her grades are excellent so far. She’s loving college and is taking on leadership roles already in several campus clubs, but nothing related to her major.
She applied to 4 REUs this summer which I know are super competitive. She found out about them through a campus bio listserv, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t talk to her profs or advisor (her first-year advisor is not STEM) about them. She just did her apps and essays and sent them off. She’s heard back from 2 that she didn’t get them and doesn’t expect the others to come through either. I’m really glad she took initiative and threw her name in the hat but feel like maybe she should have reached out to get more advice from her bio profs regarding other opportunities, how to position herself, etc. She has an offer to go be a summer camp counselor in the mountains which she’s excited about – but not bio related, of course.
I’m trying not to helicopter and trust her to figure it out, but also realize that she doesn’t know what she doesn’t know so I thought some insights from here might help. Especially interested in insights about LAC students since research is different there, but any advice or tips welcome.
I know a lot of pre-med students take a year b4 applying to med school. Do pre- PhD students do the same to get more lab / research experience under their belt? Is there plenty of time and am I overthinking this?
My dh worked every summer in a lab at NIH back in the Dark Ages. PhD in biophysics. Nephew emailed professors before he started at Rice and one said come visit him during freshman orientation. He started working in the lab before classes started. He got involved in a really interesting project that ended up getting cool awards and making NPR. Summers he worked in other labs, including one that dh calls “The paper of the century”. He was one of the many authors on that one. He got a very prestigious national award, and ended up getting a PhD in bioengineering at MIT. If she thinks she wants to do research she should do it early. Biology research is brutal and the sooner she finds out whether it is worth it the better.
Thanks @mathmom – so clearly she is being a slacker so far, lol!
The amazing thing is my nephew was kind of a slacker in high school. I think not getting into any of his first choice colleges helped light a fire under him. But Rice turned out to be a wonderful nurturing place and probably a much better place for him than his original first choice which was MIT.
If she ia at a top 10 LAC, then her departmental major advisor and the other faculty members will be able to help her with all of this. That is their respnsibility. As a freshman, she probably is too shy to ask them for advice yet. Give her time to get more comfortable around them, and things will start to work out.
@happymomof1 – Tks for this input. I think you’re right. I need to keep suggesting she talk to her profs and trust the process.
My DD’s area of study is different, but perhaps her experience will be helpful. She started undergrad as a biomedical engineering major and changed to a math major and physics minor during the fall of her 2nd year.
The summer after her 1st year she did an internship with a medical imaging company and was focused on identifying research that supported the company’s internal research. In the summers following her 2nd and 3rd years she did REUs that were math related. The REU following her junior year allowed her to select what she wanted to research. She researched and identified the REUs she was most interested in, but had professors who gave her advice and provided recommendations.
In addition to her research she was recruited by the physics department her 2nd year to grade homework problem sets and quizzes for physics 1 and 2 classes. This grew to also grading for calculus classes and being a TA for an upper level math class her senior year, and doing research with a member of the physics faculty her junior and senior years.
I think my DD got the best advice and support from professors she initially connected with in classes. She told me on multiple occasions that the department advisor was not of much help, but that she had 3 professors she connected with and provided unending support and advice. Her initial contact with all of these professors was in class. These professors recommended her for the grading and TA positions and one of them matched her up with the professor that she did research with.
There are many paths to success, but building relationships with professors and leveraging success in the class room was certainly helpful with my DD. My DD is now in the 3rd year of working towards a PhD in math at one of the top Math programs.
This is really helpful @soxfan99. Thank you for sharing about the roles that profs played in helping her find opportunities. So cool to hear your D’s path – congrats to her!
One of my Ds majoring in Biochem/Molecular Bio/CS worked in a lab during the school year at her top 25 LAC, starting at the end of freshman year, and was also able to get paid summer internships in the same lab. She was able to attend several conferences and present her research during poster sessions. After graduating, she wanted a gap year and she spent 1 year on a research fellowship at the NIH (2 years on an NIH fellowship is not uncommon). She was a very competitive grad school applicant, receiving multiple offers and is in her 2nd year of a Biomedical Sciences PhD program. The PhD interview process was pretty intense, involving multiple 3-4 day visits. D did not want to go through the grad application process during her senior year, on top of an intense academic workload, hence the gap year at the NIH.
Many LACs will have research opportunities available for undergrads, but the students need to express interest and discuss with an advisor or professors who teach academic interest areas. The NIH fellowships are a great way to build lab skills and broaden experience to enhance grad school applications.
Hi-- I was inspired to create an account after seeing this thread since I feel I can offer some genuine advice. I am science faculty at a large university and started perusing this site, which I had been unaware of, because my son is a HS senior and applied to colleges this year.
The advice you have been given is all good. Grad schools will look for research experience, in part because it will weed out students who don’t like research (it’s not for everyone). Almost as important though is that the student will get to know the faculty member and she/he will be able to write a good (hopefully) letter of recommendation.
REUs and NIH experiences are nice to put on the record, but are very competitive. More important is to just get into a lab and do well there. The topic of the research is not really important. What is critical is putting the effort in, being responsible (i.e, showing up), getting along with everyone, being enthusiastic. These are important qualities that will be reflected in the letter of recommendation.
Doing research in the first year is pretty unusual, but your D should start trying to set something up for sophomore year, or least the 2nd semester of sophomore year. Even beginning in one’s junior year is ok, but some faculty don’t want to spend a lot of time training students who will only work for them a short time.
Your D will need to start speaking to faculty who are doing research that she finds interesting. Ask if they have openings for students to do research. Some departments/schools will post research opportunities so try talking to those people first. If there are no openings, move on to the next person. Can’t be intimidated. Most faculty are nice and don’t bite. If they do, screw 'em and talk to someone else.
Hi @drainedbrain – welcome to CC! I’m honored to the write the post that brought you off the bleachers and onto the playing field, lol!
I think the point of figuring out if she likes research is key and a great way to frame this – it’s not just about ‘being competitive for grad school’ so much as figuring out if this is research is really her cup of tea by trying different environments and seeing if this is really for her.
She literally just texted me she got the highest grade in her class on her bio 2 mid-term – 99.5 (!!) so this might be a good week to strike up a conversation with her prof, right? 
@mamag2855 – thanks for sharing your example too, and congrats to your D. It’s really helpful to hear what the various paths look like. 3 to 4 day interview visits – wow!!
I know when I was a student, I always had a hard time talking to a professor. I didn’t have any questions for them! But tI think this would indeed be a great time to go in and say, something on the order of. I’ve applied to a bunch of internships, but I’m worried I won’t get any of them because I’m just a freshman. Do you know if there’s anything else I should be looking at?
@mathmom – The thing is I think in her heart she really wants to go back to her camp this summer. She applied to the REUs b/c it was not too hard to do, they pay well, and she felt like they’d be too good to pass up. Assuming she gets 'no’s for the other two, I think she’s going to go to camp. They are holding a place for her pending those decisions.
But I do think she sees this as her last summer there. She knows camp doesn’t last forever. It’s a hippy, dippy place that she’s been going since she was 8 years old and it’s a huge part of her identity. In fact, her interest in plants comes from the working farm there and she would/will be the assistant gardener so maybe she can spin that. . .
But I’ll still encourage her to talk to the professor just about her interests in general. Her bio prof last semester invited her to come in after the semester – she did really well in his class as well – and they mainly did some course planning around her major and minor and desire to study abroad. I don’t think she brought up research. Kinda surprised he didn’t, but maybe he did and she glossed over it? It’s a learning process, I suppose.
The professor may have brought up “research” but didn’t use that word so it might not have registered.
My kids helped a professor fact check/edit articles and books; worked with grad students in a lab writing the software needed for a large grant, developed a statistical model for evaluating massive data sets, and worked with a professor on the background material needed to write a grant proposal.
All of these would qualify as “research” for an undergraduate, but none of them were called “research” by their respective universities. In some cases they were just summer jobs on campus, but assigned to a particular professor’s lab where the work got parceled out to anyone who had the skills to do it (statistical modeling).
The professor may have said “come talk to me if you’re interested in a job this summer” which to HIM means research-- any one of 20 things that need doing, but to her might not have SOUNDED like research.
Kids assume that if there’s no bunsen burner or petri dish involved, it isn’t “research” but particularly for a complicated longitudinal study, or where there are multiple universities collaborating on a project or sharing a grant, the comp sci/analysis/statistical piece is just as important. How do you determine if something was a success or a failure without figuring out the analytical tools upfront? If her programming skills are solid, there could be many interesting projects she could do.
But if her heart is telling her to go back to camp- that says something, right?
Camp is fine for another summer. Make some money. Show some well-roundedness. Only the truly obsessed will continue academics during the summer. Frankly, I worry about burnout in those cases.
I know students can be petrified to speak to professors (I can see it in their faces). But most (admittedly not all) colleagues I know really like speaking to and interacting with undergrads, and it’s our job to do so, after all. All faculty keep office hours-- try visiting during those times. If that person doesn’t have any research opportunities, ask if they know of any other faculty who might be looking. I know it can be daunting, but it’s just one of those things you need to do.
I don’t think Camp is a terrible thing to do after freshman year. It’s not easy to find jobs. My older son continued at a job that was related to his career that he started in high school. My younger son helped out in my office and spent part of the summer in Jordan in a language program. (Which as an IR major in danger of failing Arabic if he didn’t get a grip on the language was well worth it.)
I am forever grateful to the professor who made us all go to his office and discuss paper topics with him. I got to know what a kindly guy he was and he ended up being one of my thesis advisors. It was a small lecture class (around 60) and it made sure that he at least had set eyeballs on everyone.
Well, here’s an unexpected update!
My D was just offered an REU and it looks like she’s going to take it. This is a program that had its funding for this cycle delayed b/c of the shutdown so they had to go farther down their list than normal b/c by the time they made offers some of the top of list candidates had other things lined up.
They said they rarely (if ever?) take first years but think she’s a really good fit for their research focus. It pays $5000 plus travel, room & board, and even a food stipend. Plus travel to a national conference. This is more than twice what camp pays and it’s a great early chance to see if research is really for her!
She can hardly believe it and has decided it’s too good of an opp to pass up – and it’ll be a new adventure in a new part of the country for her! I think she’s sad about camp, but fort. she had not officially accepted the position there so she’s not backing out. (But they were holding a spot. . . ).
Anyway – had to come back and share this news!
My kid started research after frosh year on her college campus, but in CS (her possible major at the time). She did 2 summers there, then switched to a Phsics lab fall of junior year. She stayed in that lab through the next summer & senior year. Got into PhD physics programs based on that. So she didn’t have research relevant to her PhD major til fall of junior year.
Great for your D. REU’s are hard to come by. Getting one is great, students can’t afford to be picky about the exact subject matter. Getting to do one’s major for the summer is fantastic. I’m more familiar with the elite flagships and the great education they can provide for the above average student.
Often students have an easier time finding a research spot on their home campus. She could still try for that.