<p>Congrats to your son, Minnymom!</p>
<p>Edit: Out of curiosity, I visited the website for the REU son applied to. No news or announcements. And they have a Facebook page that hasn’t been updated since October 2012. What good is it to be on social media if you don’t update?</p>
<p>The REUs that our son did many years ago were much better at notifications and communications. I can only surmise that they’ve had exponential increases in the number of applicants since the job market has further deteriorated. It’s not an excuse but I think that companies have the same issue: a flood of resumes for every job that they post.</p>
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<p>The REUs that my son went to had a lot of planned, fun activities and lots of time for socializing in addition to the research opportunities and the time to work closely with professors - a side of universities that most students don’t get to see.</p>
<p>I just learned about REU’s on this thread. My S hadn’t heard about them either but he is just a freshman. Is this something that students would apply to prior to junior year? Do you apply by going to the links on the NSF REU website? (If anyone wants the link here it is [US</a> NSF - REU - List Result](<a href=“Search Results for REU Sites | NSF - National Science Foundation”>REU Sites | NSF - National Science Foundation) ) I see several topics listed for my S’s school but none of them under the category of “Research Topics/Key words” list his particular major, civil engineering. Would this mean that none of these would be appropriate for him?</p>
<p>spectrum2, often students go to REU’s away from their home university. This broadens their experience and also gives the other school an opportunity to try to recruit the student for research at the graduate level. Your son should look for REU’s in civil engineering, in places of interest to him. </p>
<p>I am not sure about engineering, but in science, the majority of REU participants tend to be college juniors (meaning that they apply as juniors and participate in the summer after the junior year). Sophomores make up 20-30% of the mix. In mathematics, students sometimes participate in REU’s after the freshman year, but in the physical sciences this would be very rare.</p>
<p>sigh yeah so much to worry about when child goes off to engineering. Which classes should he skip, what should he do with his extra time etc. Sigh I’m glad the decision of what school has been completed, but now he’s talking about double majors. I’m like you’re getting way too ahead of yourself. But he’s so cofident sigh.</p>
<p>He wants to skip all these classes. He has looked at the examples of questions from finals online and he could do them. But I’m like it also an opportunity for an easy grade. Definitely looking at REU, but certains school have fantastic in house research opportunities, UCB said they had about 50% of the students doing research or internship atleast once.</p>
<p>Just found out that my niece has already accepted an REU offer from an out-of-state flagship, despite not hearing yet from most of the other summer programs she applied to. She feared that if she waited for word from the hoity-toity places, she would risk missing the deadline for the offer she had in hand.</p>
<p>You know, I expect better behavior from universities. Certainly, most REU coordinators are professors and their schedule at this time of year is typically quite busy, but darn it, that doesn’t mean that simple courtesy should be thrown out of the window. If a student carried on this way with a potential employer the Career Placement Office would have a fit.</p>
<p>^Hear, hear!</p>
<p>When I was in EE many years ago I made the mistake of taking the engineering version of a physics class. It was taught by a very dry professor very early in the morning - recipe for disaster. I made a plea to the Dean of Electrical Engineering and he changed my falling grade to and Incomplete. I then took the version taught by a Physics professor and got a B+. It saved my GPA and probably saved my career! I tell this story all the time so kids will visit their Dean when they have a problem, they can really help!</p>
<p>Maybe we should have an REU thread or even a forum. REUs seem to be relatively unknown in CC though I think that they provide great opportunities, particularly for students interested in grad school and research.</p>
<p>^Just what we need–more people who know about REU’s and apply to them! ;)</p>
<p>I think that is a great idea BCEagle91. We would have to see if a moderator would make REUs a subcategory in the internship forum the way they have a subcategory for investment banking.</p>
<p>I definitely agree with getting an REU sub forum. I just now found out about REUs and I’m extremely curious! I have so many questions, but to ask them all I’d feel like I’m hijacking the thread!</p>
<p>Niquii77, try going to the internship forum and start a thread about what you want to know about REUs. Most likely people will step in and answer and then maybe we can ask a moderator to sticky it if enough postings are made. </p>
<p>There are two threads going on there right now about REUs and NASA internship notifications which are sort of like REUS so there are people watching that board.</p>
<p>Oh, ok. I’ll do that! Thank you, Lakemom.</p>
<p>Good. The one thing I have learned is, from a language perspective, is that there are two kinds of internships. Industry internships and Research internships. The research ones are the REUs.</p>
<p>There are research internships that aren’t REUs too. Some schools host their own internships - often with a similar model to REUs but the schools work out the funding themselves. There are also individual research internships but these aren’t standardized and depend on a relationship between the professor and the student.</p>
<p>Are true REUs then only through the National Science foundation then?</p>
<p>[US</a> NSF - REU - For Students](<a href=“http://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/]US”>REU - For Students | NSF - National Science Foundation)</p>
<p>There are “official” or “true” REUs, but there are also lesser known other ones, such those available through colleges/Us. S was able to do one in our flagship U while his buddy went to MIT for a summer program and did research there. Doubt either was a “true” REU, but it helped S acquire experience and made him much more employable. The following summer, he got a REU from NASA in Newport, which he also enjoyed. Those 2 internships made him qualify with employers as having two years experience, which surprised us and him (the 2 years he did research part-time at his U was largely ignored). The internships helped move him up the list in candidates when they are choosing whom to make job offers.</p>
<p>Interesting Himom. All this push for kids to do something to get experience and you would think that doing research would count as much as an internship but I guess not.</p>
<p>I’m sure the research during the school year and writing journal articles with his prof didn’t HURT, but they were clear with S that they were most impressed that he had an engineering internship for the summer after both Soph and JR years. I especially think they were impressed with the NASA internship, from which he got excellent recommendations he says.</p>