Hello, I am a prospective student who has been accepted to UCSD (Human Biology) with the Regents scholarship. My goal is to be able to get into medical school after college.
The benefits that Regents gives seem pretty impressive for pre-med, especially the first-year research program. That being said, I would like to ask current Regents students (or people who know Regents students) their experience concerning the following:
- After the first year of RSRI, can you continue working with the mentor you were paired with in your future years at UCSD? Or is it specifically only a one-year thing, and after that you’re done for that line of research?
- Is the RSRI program likely to produce a research paper in the first year? The online pamphlet I received highlights a student who published a paper after 6 months of research. I find this very impressive, but I wonder if it is too good to be true so I would like to hear some experiences of other people.
- Are there any other downsides or catches to RSRI that I should be aware of? Things that were unexpected based on your prior perception of the program? I saw that it was “subject to availability”; are there any students who find that they are unable to be paired with a mentor that they like?
Essentially, the main point of this post is to make sure that what I am envisioning is what I would actually be getting if I choose to take this offer. Thank you in advance for your answers :3