Research - Help me decide what to do!

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>I posted this question on Grad School forum but got only one response so I post her again!</p>

<p>I'm a rising senior majoring in chemistry and minoring in mathematics.
Eventually I want to get a non-thesis Master's degree in Chemical Engineering and work as a chemical engineer. I just like the macroscopic approach of chemical engineering rather than chemistry. I'm not interested in doing research for my career.</p>

<p>This summer I contacted a Professor and asked him if I can work in his lab this fall because I wanted to do something during academic semesters, preferably on campus. I can't get paid and can only get 3 credit hours because he doesn't have enough funding. My concern is that I have to be in the lab 20 hours per week, and also go to a weekly group meeint. It's a bit too time consuming to me, and when I talked about this the Prof. told me I can come less hours, though I'll be doing more of a grunt work in that case. Is this even a good idea to work in his lab? Should I try to find an internship in engineering? I feel like I'll be wasting time this fall if I don't do any of them.</p>

<p>I think I have two choices.</p>

<p>1) Work 20 hours a week and get a good recommendation letter from the Professor by doing this</p>

<p>2) Just work in the lab fewer than 20 hours, doing minor work as he suggested since I still can put it on my resume. Work another job that at the same time. Get a recommendation letter from the professor by taking his class (upper level chemistry)</p>

<p>Will having this one year of research experience be useful even if I want to get course-based Master's degree?</p>

<p>Please help me!</p>

2

<p>Working in the lab is your best option for the long term. You likely won’t be able to get any significant engineering internships during the school year. Any other job you could reasonably get will likely be a waste of time, in terms of experience.</p>

<p>And yes, it will help you even if you plan on going the non-thesis route.</p>

3

<p>I don’t know much about chemical engineering, but when I read your situation, I had one question. Can you even get an engineering internship with a chem/math degree? This is a question you should ask, and if the answer is no, then obviously you want some relevant work experience so you should probably do the lab research.</p>

4

<p>Thanks for the replies.</p>

<p>I think PurdueEE is right about the internship. Right now I’m trying to decide between the two choices. If I go with choice one, I can get 3 credits to substitute a class, will be working on a project with grad student and a post-doc, go to a group meeting discussing new papers, and the PI will write me a good LoR. For choice two I will be less involved with research and have more free time, and take the very same class the PI teaches and get a LoR through it. Right now I’m leaning toward choice two. </p>

<p>I mean, either way it’s going to appear similar on the resume, right? I participated in his lab!</p>