Hello, I am a rising senior looking to major in neuroscience/psychology, and I would like to know the prevalence of students getting involved in research or some kind of internship? How difficult/competitive is it to get on board with research? Is it a significant part of the culture at Smith?
Smith has a fabulous research opportunity/merit scholarship program called STRIDE. It’s offered to a number of high achieving first years as a way to lure them to attend Smith. You get a $20,000 per year scholarship (or $25,000 if you are a Zollman scholar) as a well as a guaranteed research position for two years with a professor right from the start of your college career. The options are across the curriculum - you pick your top 5 and they match you.
I have also read on these boards and in other places that you can do research fairly easily even if you aren’t a STRIDE (but the STRIDE gets you started right away). From what I can gather, many of the top LACs provide research opportunities for their students. It’s one of the selling points of LACS.
One other thing: Smith provides every student with funding for a summer internship called the PRAXIS program. So, internships are something Smith clearly promotes for its students.