<p>hey guys, I just emailed the ME advisor about REU (research experience for undergraduates) and told me that although paid reu are closed now, unpaid seem to be available. Is it worth taking these? Or should I just try to find internship this summer instead?</p>
<p>thank you</p>
<p>I have never heard of unpaid REUs before. The Federal Government provides grants for these programs so I can’t see why one would be unpaid. Perhaps your adviser is referring to regular research at the university that is unpaid.</p>
<p>Have you looked around for other REUs in your major area at other schools?</p>
<p>hmm did I misunderstand perhaps? this is what he said in the message:</p>
<p>“We do not have paid REU openings. In case you are interested in working for the purpose of gaining research experience and can work professionally, please contact Dr. Susarla copied here. Thank you.”</p>
<p>Ah. I think what he/she was telling you is simply that they do not have any REU spots but that they can help you find a spot in someone’s lab - which is NOT an REU position.</p>
<p>As to whether or not you should take it depends on your position and aspirations. What year are you? Do you need the money? Are you interested in industry or grad school?</p>
<p>I’m a junior right now majoring in mechanical engineering. I’m interested in something along the field related to automobile or electric and hybrid vehicles and mechatronic field related as well (this is going to be my first time involving in research and although I do not have such broad knowledge regarding these field, I’m quite interested doing some research). Well I actually do wanna go to grad school for better job prospects and woud like to graduate some well known grad school if I do want to start working (I’m attending a mediocre college as of now) (I feel that going to grad school will provide me a better understanding of the field) and for the money, my parents told me to now worry about it since they will pay for it but, I will probably work for few years and attend grad school if I can’t get any funding or position for lab assistant to pay for the tuition)</p>
<p>REUs are nice in that they provide: pay, housing for non-local students (usually), group events (our experience), a day to present a poster and give a talk on your findings and the project is usually useful to a researcher. You also get to meet students interested in research from other universities. What I’ve seen of REUs is that students make meaningful contributions as opposed to some lab positions where you are doing tasks that don’t necessarily use your education and skills.</p>
<p>I think that an REU would be more interesting experience unless the unpaid internship was in an area that you are strongly interested in. The summer unpaid internship may have possibilities for paid work during the school year too.</p>
<p>This website has pointers to REU programs at US Universities. It lists the grants and either lists a contact or a direct link to the program websites.</p>
<p>[US</a> NSF - REU - List Result](<a href=“Search Results for REU Sites | NSF - National Science Foundation”>REU Sites | NSF - National Science Foundation)</p>
<p>I found two programs with March 15 application deadlines just clicking on a few links:</p>
<p>[Engineering</a> Solutions for Clean Energy Generation, Storage and Consumption - Programs - Research Experience for Undergraduates - The College of Engineering - UA](<a href=“http://reu.eng.ua.edu/programs/energy/]Engineering”>http://reu.eng.ua.edu/programs/energy/)
[NAE</a> Grand Challenges - Programs - Research Experience for Undergraduates - The College of Engineering - UA](<a href=“http://reu.eng.ua.edu/programs/nae-grand-challenges/]NAE”>http://reu.eng.ua.edu/programs/nae-grand-challenges/)</p>
<p>These were under the engineering category. There are lots of other categories to look into.</p>
<p>[Research</a> Experience for Undergraduate Students (REU) | Chemical Engineering](<a href=“http://www.cbe.engr.uconn.edu/research-experience-for-undergraduate-students-reu]Research”>http://www.cbe.engr.uconn.edu/research-experience-for-undergraduate-students-reu)</p>
<p>As a junior, this is presumably your last summer before grad school and employment applications - you should focus on your primary goal, whether it is grad school or industry. </p>
<p>
If your goal for grad school is money and a “better understanding of the field” I would recomend heading into industry. Getting a masters will pay off in the long run over just having a BS, but you can work and then get your MS part time and still make almost as much money (on average). And going into grad school will provide a very narrow, very deep view of industry, so you really need to know what you want to study - industry will give you more chances to survey the field and decide where you really want to specialize.</p>
<p>Also, what are your qualifications? Do you currently have any research experience? How is your GPA? Getting into a “well known grad school” is not a trivial task!</p>
<p>@cosmicfish this is actually my first research experience as I mentioned before, and I am aiming for master’s degree. I heard research plays a major role in getting admitted to grad school so I decided to go through this process.</p>
<p>oh sorry I forgot to mention this right now but because I transffered from other schoo last semester, I have to stay for 4.5 years. So in detail, (including this semester), I have 2 summer, 2 fall semesters, and 2 springs semesters left before I graduate (so pretty much I’ll be graduating in around december I guess?)</p>
<p>oh and if you guys don’t mind I would like to ask something about masters and phd</p>
<p>how do you make a choice about which one you want to go for? All I know is that phd is for someone who plans to do research for career but what about masters?</p>
<p>If you want to get into a REU. This is your last summer. Those programs do not accept students unless you have at least a full year remaining. For this summer, you’re likely too late for most of the deadlines.</p>
<p>
Yes it is, although it is usually weighted more heavily for PhD candidate than for masters candidates.</p>
<p>
If you have two summers left then this is not as big a deal - you apparently have another summer coming up where you could do research. And bear in mind that very, very few grad programs do spring admissions, so you will need to find something to do between graduating in December and starting grad school in August.</p>
<p>
A masters teaches you a little about research and makes you an expert (somewhat) in a particular specialty. This is an important first step to a research career and is highly valued in industry as well (which only needs so many generalists!). A masters makes it harder to find work outside that specialty but easier to find work within it, and so overall helps you regardless of your academic or industrial aims.</p>
<p>A PhD teaches you how to LEAD research and makes you THE expert in a particular (narrow) field. A PhD is all but required for academia or top-level research, but shuts you out of most “basic” engineering jobs - you are simply overqualified.</p>
<p>So if you want to be an academic or a researcher or plumb the absolute depths of a particular specialty, then get a PhD. Otherwise, get the masters, and remember that if you change your mind the PhD is always something you can get later.</p>
<p>Most of our recent hires in our local group have been Phds. I don’t know whether or not our positions are considered basic engineering jobs but we do hire people with the expectation that they will start out doing maintenance and implementation work and later do research and design work. We expect our engineers to be able to lead projects too - some Phd hires step right into this role - some don’t.</p>
<p>Well then, BCEagle1, I wouldn’t touch your company with a hundred-foot pole from the sound of it.</p>
<p>@pyroknife </p>
<p>wait so when doing research, doing REU is always better than other research? What about the ones you do during fall or spring semester? like independent project supervised by professors or working at the lab?</p>
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<p>The company is making money hand over fist so the financial rewards are pretty nice. Of course I realize that money isn’t everything. But it can make life easier.</p>
<p>An REU isn’t necessarily better or worse. It depends on the other research. The REU has some good aspects over university research jobs where you aren’t really doing the thinking part of the research.</p>
<p>REUs let’s you spend a summer at another university where you can build more connections. It’s funner to spend your summer elsewhere, we’ll at least for me.</p>
<p>Hey BCeagle and pyroknife, since u used to participate in the program, do u have any idea how challenging it is to get accepted? I know most programs accept only 10 students. The reason I asked is because I’ve applied to a few and I won’t hear from them until its close to April and I’m pretty nervous. </p>
<p>Sent from my Nexus One using CC</p>
<p>My son did the REUs. With his first one, he applied to one and was accepted. With the second, he applied to two or three and was accepted. In both cases, his coursework was what individual researchers were looking for to do their projects. This is why it’s important to look through the projects that they are planning for the summer to see if your interests and abilities line up with something in particular. Then you can make your case for the REU for a particular project or projects in your personal statement or other free-form submission.</p>
<p>This was also several years ago before REUs got really competitive. I think that things are harder today because of the general poor market for internships and jobs.</p>