Internship at NASA or University of Houston

I have two standing offers for summer internships this year and the deadline to accept one or the other is within the week. So I’m an industrial engineer undergrad and I want to go in simulation and design or big data analytics Industry post grad. So let me tell you my offers. NASA is offering me a $6,000 10 week stipend to do "Re-Distribution and Utilization ( R & U) for what ever that means ( maybe you do? ) and they are very very very vague as to what I will be doing their , all know is that il be at Johnson space Center doing that R & U stuff .

Second option, Through outside funding I got a chance to work under one of the Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department on his research project which consist of either Improving Solid-State and aqueous battery’s and Additive manufacturing Fuel Cells with a newly designed 3d printer that his grad student invented. ( it has a collection pool in the back of printer that can Precision spray a combination of different materials in whatever percent composition you need it to its cool ). So I toured his lab and met his group its 9 guys 3 phd the rest grad student. now when i tell you these guys are smart I mean their brilliant , their all international student mainly from china. But I think their way above my league as an undergrad I don’t know half the stuff they talking about lol. But their more interested in the research aspect of different ElectrChemical properties in different materials their making.

So the first is cool , itll be great on my resume but I’m not sure what I’m getting myself into since their so vauge. And the drive their is like an hour their and back

The second might not help my resume ( research I heard doesn’t hold up well on a professional resume) and I’m not very interested in the chemistries of materials I think (although I like materials weird) But at least I have met my colleges and the Professor. So I know what im getting into.

What would you do!! help please anything helps what you think

Congrats on your offers! Sorry this isn’t really answering your question, but did you apply to the NASA internship through OSSI?

Yes I applied through the one stop shop ossi. But I turned down the NASA offer I researched what the heck “Re-Distribution and Utilization R & U was with them but ended up founding out that they have a large contract with a company who does all their “logistics” and the offer they gave me was so vauge it just said how much I would get paid when I pushed the coordinator about what exactly I would be doing or If she had a clue as to the nature of the internship at least I would always get an answer like " interns will find out who their mentors are and their duties after accepting the offer” it just sounded fishy to me like I would be doing a lot of the low end stuf and dirty work for the contract company lol. but hey I would never know … thanks though. I accept the offer to research at University of Houston instead ill learn more their at least. even if its not my field it seems cool since battery technology is import with all the new energy storage problems coming up. Whats your major?

Note to the OP: please work on your English, I’m not sure where you are from, and I don’t discount the US as being the answer, but “their” isn’t a universal word for “they’re” “there” and “their,” let alone your “colleagues” aren’t “colleges”. And you probably mean “postdocs” as opposed to “PhDs” that have been working a while.

If I would have seen your post earlier, I would have mentioned that unless you are considering getting a graduate degree at U Houston, turning down the NASA internship is insane. You can’t buy resume fodder like that. And you can’t buy exposure to JSC people. You could have asked about local housing options, University of Houston Clear Lake is close by.

Good luck on your internship!

bump not sure what is OP, I know the difference between their, they’re and there. I wrote the post quickly and on my phone I apologize for the incorrect grammar and some of the spelling but it’s not that serious you understood my question. And I wrote PhD short hand for postdoctoral. After the fact I understand that I probably made a big mistake by turning down NASA but it’s already done. Either way I have a new offer that I’m.accepting today, I have 24 hours to accept it’s at Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute. As an Industrial Engineering Major I think this is bigger then any offer I’ve had so far. Thank you for the post though. Wish you would’ve read earlier I probably would have been at NASA training by now then