<p>Or would it be better to stay at my home institution for the summer and work with a professor I've worked with for a semester already? His research is very interesting and he has pretty good credentials (published a paper in Science and ate dinner with Obama for some award). I think the NASA project sounds cool too, but I'm not sure if I would learn as much from it since I'd only be there for 10 weeks as opposed to all summer with a semester's worth of learning already. This decision is killing me and I have to make it by Friday. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I'm an EE major interested in electromagnetics, btw.</p>
<p>I would take the NASA job. My boyfriend, also an electrical engineer, did an internship at JPL and got accepted to great EE PhD programs, including UMich, MIT, UPenn, Georgia Tech, Johns Hopkins.</p>
<p>Wow, that’s awesome! Thanks for the info</p>
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<p>Do whichever you think is more interesting. Just make sure you’ll be working on something interesting and not doing mundane tasks.</p>
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<p>Mind sharing a bit more about his background i.e. undergraduate stats, time working at JPL, etc. I ask because I know of people who worked at JPL but didn’t do as well with acceptances.</p>
<p>My S also was doing research at his U & had the opportunity to continue doing it over the summer in EE or work at NASA for 10 weeks. He chose NASA & worked on robotics. He really enjoyed it and was able to go back to the research lab when school resumed in the fall. He was offered several full-time jobs because of all of his experience (he had worked at a different lab the prior summer). He has opted NOT to go to grad school at this time but to work for a while & then decide specifically what he might want to study in grad school, which his employer has indicated it may pay for. Just a bit more food for thought. :)</p>
<p>Oh yea, the work he & his peers were doing with the prof was written up in several journal articles that were or soon will be published.</p>
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<p>MetalFace, could you elaborate on this?</p>
<p>My S did his internship at Newport News, VA. He did apply for a job at JPL his senior year & even when their for a follow up interview but they didn’t have funding at the time, so he accepted another offer that had more secure funding.</p>
<p>There was quite a bit of flexibility at his internship as to how hard any one wanted to work and how much they wanted to get out of the opportunity. He got to know the supervisors well and feels they were very supportive references in his job search.</p>
<p>My DS stayed on campus every summer, and had excellent result for grad school. Just do what you eally want to do, and do it well.</p>
<p>Here are my bf’s stats:
3.75 at UMich, double major in EE and CS
Good GREs (I don’t remember exactly, but 800Q)
1 first author conference paper, 1 second author pub. under review
did research for about 2 years, including 1 summer full time at UMich
did research at JPL for a summer and got a letter from his advisor there</p>
<p>Let me know if you want to know anything more specific.</p>
<p>Just my $0.02.</p>
<p>It seems like every poster on here has gone on to do some form of research, but how many applicants get to say they worked at NASA? Wouldn’t this stand out more to ad comms?</p>
<p>Not really, since it’s the quality of your research and what comes out of it that matters most. If you’ve got a really solid relationship with a professor at your school with good research, then stick with that.</p>
<p>(Also, keep in mind, a lot of professors (the people who will be reviewing your applications in grad school) have also had the opportunity to work with NASA and may or may not have a positive outlook on the organization.)</p>
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<p>Well, that makes your previous post a little misleading. Your BF has great stats so working JPL probably didn’t make much of a difference. He has a good GPA from a great school, good GREs, research experience, and probably great letters of recommendation.</p>
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<p>It won’t stand out that much actually. Unless you did something groundbreaking. Like RacinReaver stated, it’s the quality of your research. I’ve met people who have done research internships at NASA but only did mundane tasks. That kind of work will not stand out very much.</p>
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<p>I’ve known people who have worked there for a year or two, but didn’t get into the top schools. They had less than 3.3 GPA, little research experience, and so-so GREs.</p>
<p>It’s a package deal. Don’t think that just because you worked at NASA that it will get you into your dream school. You need a solid GPA, research experience, good GREs, great SOP, and great letters of recommendation. Look at lizziek’s BF’s profile. The JPL was only the cherry on top.</p>
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<p>The project I’d be working on sounds legitimate. The idea is that a cylindrical cavity resonates at different frequencies for different types of cylindrical samples placed in it. Properties of the material can be determined by the new resonant frequency. This information can be used with satellite data to determine properties of various things in space. The old way of doing this was to assume that the sample was really small relative to the cavity (cavity perturbation). The new approach uses exact solutions to Maxwell’s equations. My job would be to write the program in Mathematica to use the new approach.</p>
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Why the hate, haha?</p>
<p>Not hating. It’s the truth.</p>
<p>Well, I don’t know if you’re applying for some other program at NASA other than JPL, but I’ll put in a plug for JPL. When my boyfriend was working there he absolutely loved it. He got to meet and network with awesome people in the field, do some really interesting independent research (definitely not mundane tasks), and the interns were really tight knit. Plus, LA is a fun place to be in the summer. </p>
<p>Also, with regards to my bf and his admissions. Yeah, he has other good stats, but one of his letters was from his PI at JPL and I’m sure it was a strong letter. I mean, you probably won’t get any publications from working for just a summer, but it’s still good to get a variety of experiences.</p>
<p>It is JPL. Did he live in the Caltech dorms? Also, just curious, where did he pick for grad school?</p>
<p>As an MSE student who did two internships at NASA last spring and summer, I can say that working for NASA definitely does help. I got to work on two different sites (Glenn and Langley. I combined them to form a Co-op!), both of which exposed me to some very interesting research. Overall, I got quite a lot from the experience, including:</p>
<p>-Contacts at both sites.
-People who can write me good recommendation letters.
-Two NASA internships on my resume.
-The prestige of having won the scholarships that earned me the internships.
-The ability to travel.
-A pretty darn good stipend. The NASA Aeronautics Scholarship provides a ten thousand dollar stipend for a ten week internship.
- Research experience in an area that I probably never would have learned about if I spent my Co-op somewhere else or did research at my school. A lot of people talk about how students get accepted to schools because of their “fit,” but I would argue that a lot of students get accepted to graduate programs because they have a few, somewhat diverse interests and several different research experiences to back them up. This was certainly the case for me. </p>
<p>I applied to several MSE graduate programs this year, and I currently have five acceptances, two of which are top 10 MSE programs. I do not think that I would have been nearly as successful without my two NASA internships.</p>
<p>Our S did an internship with NASA at Newport News VA. That along with a research position he had the prior summer allowed him to be competitive for the most attractive jobs because he had so much diverse experience and showed a willingness to relocate. He was offered three positions and also interviewed for a fourth (not hired for the last one due to lack of funding).</p>
<p>Yes, he stayed in the Caltech dorms. He’ll probably go to UPenn to stay with me, but otherwise he would go to MIT.</p>
<p>UPenn is great. I was there last summer. I think I’m going to take the NASA job</p>