S18 is at a large State school, in his second year and has been trying to get a research position since Freshman year. He has written and approached dozens of professors, but so far nothing has come of it. Every quarter he tries again, and the few that respond will say try again next quarter or flat out say ‘no’. One prof, high up in the Department, invited him for a chat to find out more of what son’s future plans are. When son informed him that he wants to go on to do a Ph.D. in Marine Biology, he told son to finish his undergrad asap (at end of second year), to move to Australia for 2 years (to get some internship at a college there!!!???) and then apply for Grad school in the States, since he won’t be able to get any research opportunities at his current school and without research experience he won’t get in to Grad school.
Looking for advise on how to proceed. Thinking of the early finish option (it is a possibility for him) and then maybe do a one year Masters in Britain, South Africa or Australia, and then try Grad school here? Or stay on and hope and pray someone will eventually give him a chance of research? Or maybe try get research positions for 2 summers elsewhere, but would that be enough to satisfy Grad school admissions?
Hi, A few thoughts. 1) research in chemistry or biology would also be very helpful for grad school in marine biology, and there should be more opportunities for those. 2) https://coast.noaa.gov/fellowship/undgrad_opportunities.html You can pursue summer research internships, a quick search found this url. Suggest check NSF sites as well, and expand to include chemistry and biology, not just marine bio 3) Also national labs are great places for summer internships, https://orise.orau.gov/stem/internships-fellowships-research-opportunities/undergraduates.html again, expand to include chemistry and bio. Note for national labs (ORNL, ANL, PNNL, etc) , once apply for undergrad program also best to search the lab websites and find researchers with projects that interest you and email them directly. Apply early and contact researchers directly early. I would not do early finish, I would focus on good undergrad grades, prep for GRE’s, and get summer internships and/or during school year in related research areas. Good luck!
Can you tell us what school he is at, at what his citizenship is? Does his school have a coop program that he can join? Are there summer internships that he can apply to?
One option is to keep his grades as high as possible, graduate, and then work for a couple of years before applying to grad schools. This worked for me many years ago, but then I might have been very lucky in terms of what sort of work I was able to find.
I don’t see the point of graduating early. I am thinking that if a student stands out as being both a really top student, and being a pleasant and responsible person, then some professors are likely to notice.
Another option is to transfer to a school that has better research opportunities. However, it is not easy to predict this ahead of time.
One daughter is getting great research opportunities as an undergrad student. However I do not know how much of this comes from being a very strong student and how much comes from being at a small school where there are very few graduate students, which allows undergrads to participate in research opportunities.
@STEMFocus Thank you so much for responding and providing those two links. He has targeted Biology labs too, but thanks for the Chemistry suggestion!
@DadTwoGirls Thank you so much for your feedback. We are US, but OOS at UCLA. One reason for graduating early, after he was told so by the Prof., is that this education is expensive and we are worried that after 4 years we are not going to see any return for it. Just closed doors at Grad schools. We don’t live near the coast, so there are no opportunities for him back home to get experience in Marine Biology unfortunately.
sorry to hear you are paying OOS fees at a UC. (I spend a lot of time on cc trying to discourage such behavior. Excellent school, but poor value at $60k/yr IMO. And Marine Bio is not their thing.)
Anyway, there are several issues at play here. In the first place, your S is still a newbie with regards to education. A Soph has barely gotten thru some of the intro science classes, and without the basics, its really hard to offer any value to a Prof (other than bottle washer.) I have no doubt that your son would be a hard worker and is willing to learn, but that’s just not the way research slots go. Second, a big public like UCLA has literally thousands of undergrads chasing those coveted research slots, so the competition for them is brutal. Priority goes to Majors who have already completed a STEM curriculum (and organic chem).
Does your S have a quant background? Advanced stats? Can he take a class/self-teach ‘R’? If so, he would be attractive to help others by running analyses of their research. Social science labs would love such help, but I would think that some Bio types would as well. The problem is that UCLA has a small Marine Bio program. (Most of their bio majors are premed and brutally competitive.)
I also agree with the transfer idea. Why not to a school that has a strong Marine Bio major, such as U-Miami. Miami’s marine bio program is 5x the size of UCLA’s even tho the school is much smaller. (If he applied as a Frosh, he would have received a nice merit scholly from Miami.) Heck, even UCSD’s Marine Bio program is 6x larger than UCLA’s.
For OOS money, I suggest that you to consider a mid-sized private school.
I agree that it may not be necessary to get research experience specifically in Marine Biology. My son is currently a PhD student in Aerospace Engineering at Michigan. He did a summer research program in Germany after his junior year, which was more materials engineering oriented (carbon fiber aerospace applications).
Germany has a lot of affordable summer research opportunities. They do not require German language skills.
@bluebayou Thanks so much for your great insight. In hindsight, he should have attended UMiami (he got the scholly money), and he got in to UCSD as well, but for a lot of different reasons the choice fell on UCLA (research experience was unfortunately not something we thought about, since we, the parents, are from overseas and did not realize how important it was for Grad school in the US). He has finished all his UC and STEM prerequisites, apart from Physics and only has a handful of upper level MBio classes left to take, so graduating is not far off. I like the idea of him taking more useful classes where he learns R or maybe Python, and more advanced Statistics while he is still there. Thanks for the suggestion!
@Beaudreau Thanks so much for your reply. What a great program in Germany! I had never heard of it. Unfortunately, I don’t think it will work since it is from mid-May to end of July, and the UCs only finish their Spring quarter mid-June. I will email them though to see if exceptions can be made. Thanks for the suggestion!
Besides the biology and chemistry departments, perhaps try the labs associated with the medical school at UCLA, and labs in other related fields, such as mathematics and physics. As long as the student can demonstrate commitment and competence in a lab, then not having done research in the field that aligns exactly with one’s interest is not a big disadvantage when applying to graduate schools. Many professors like to include students with diverse academic background in their labs.
Some labs hesitate to take in undergraduate students as researchers because they lack the manpower to mentor the undergraduates in doing research; in fact, some graduate students and post-docs see it as a big time-draining chore to show another newcomer around in the lab. Perhaps ask if he can volunteer to do menial jobs, such as washing glassware or help with cleanup, to get his foot in the door first.
I am not discounting that undergraduate research is helpful, but It is much more important that your son has performed solidly for all the courses required by the marine biology department, when applying to graduate schools, and of course, GRE, if required.
@tgl2023 Thank you so much for your response. I did not know that it didn’t really matter so much in which area one was able to get research in, as long as one could demonstrate competence and commitment in a lab. That was great to find out. This opens more possibilities and avenues we can explore at UCLA. I am thinking now that perhaps we should at least have him stay a year longer at UCLA, instead of rushing to finish in 2 years, and then have him take other useful courses not required for the major, but for future research, and try to find that entry glassware cleaning job to get him started! Your response has been really helpful and comforting!
Is your son getting any indication why these professors are telling him “try again next quarter” or “no”? In his freshman year, and even now in the first semester of his sophomore year, it could be that he’s just asking too early. In science fields - especially at large universities where labs are primarily supported by graduate students and postdocs - sometimes labs won’t take on students before junior year, because they don’t have the skills yet to be useful in the lab.
I would usually advise deferring to the advice of professors in one’s field, but that professor’s advice sounds…weird. He may be right in that he needs to go elsewhere to get research experience, but there are definitely more places to go than moving all the way to Australia to get it done. There are post-college programs here in the States that would expose him to research.
But the most important part of the statement is " since he won’t be able to get any research opportunities at his current school." Again I ask - why is that? He’s been getting that message consistently from several professors in his department, and your son should be asking professors WHY that is, because only that’s going help him decide what to do next. If it’s simply that he’s too junior, all he’s got to do is wait a semester. But if it’s that there are no opportunities at his university, then transferring or seeking outside opportunities over the summer and after college may be the right approach.
I will say that I don’t agree with the advice that the grades are much more important. For PhD programs, research experience is pretty much the most important thing, and many (dare I say most) PhD programs will take a student with a 3.5 and solid research experience over a student with a 3.8 and no experience. Students can do really well in school but dislike research or just not be good at it, and doctoral programs like to know that their students have some sense of what they’re getting themselves into (and also, that they’ll be useful in the lab).
@juillet Your response is much appreciated. My son told me that the reason he gets a ‘no’ or ‘try again next quarter’ is that they say in their replies that there are no openings in their respective labs. The professor that gave him the weird advice, was actually the only one who replied after his first request to him in Freshman year, that my son was very early to start his search for a lab and like you said students normally start the search in Junior year.
You mentioned post-college programs here in the US that would expose him to research. I have been trying my darnedest to find any of those, but cannot find any that don’t require previous research. That is also the reason that I mentioned in my post that we are considering having him go overseas. Would you mind sharing some names of these programs? That would be wonderful!
My daughter just started her PhD program in Biological Oceanography. During the summer between sophomore and junior year, she volunteered at a marine lab in Northern California. She contacted researchers who did work on the topics she was interested in and asked if they would take her on as a volunteer. The experience she got that summer was invaluable. Her mentor was so happy with her work that she wrote a great recommendation and was instrumental in my daughter being accepted as a summer research fellow at world class oceanographic institution in the Northeast the following year.
I second the suggestion to look at NSF funded REUs. My older daughter went that route, and did REUs for two summers. She is currently finishing up her PhD in engineering.
Lots of good advice so far. Has he sought out assistance from the undergraduate research center? Looks like there are a number of resources including a portal with listings of opportunities. http://sciences.ugresearch.ucla.edu/getting-started/portal/
Has he tried going to the study abroad office to see what opportunities might be available in that sphere? Maybe he could get his foot in the door, research-wise, in a semester or year abroad program and have it count toward his UCLA degree.
What about attending another UC as a visiting student if there are summer programs or other field/course opportunities. UCSC has the Coastal Science Campus.
My sons attend UCLA. One is doing research in a lab. The opportunity came about through one of his TAs. Likely right place, right time.
He found that staying on campus and taking a summer session was helpful. Fewer students on campus but still research going on.
As another poster suggested, he did learn how to use R which helped him.
@Ladyengineer2012 Congratulations to both your daughters! Excellent suggestion. We already identified researchers and he will contact them over the long Christmas break.
@Mwfan1921 Thank you so much in finding that link. It will be very helpful to those who read this thread and need assistance in finding lab work at UCLA. He attended their undergraduate workshop last week and at that time went through the listings. He identified four possibilities, but hasn’t heard back from any yet, unfortunately.
@aquapt Great suggestion too! Yes, he is signed up for a semester of Marine Biology in Australia, so at least he will have that.
@svlab112 Thanks so much for replying! He stayed all summer this year, and despite contacting lots of labs, only one reached out, and let him change the water filtration once a week in one of their tanks. Such a shame that he was not able to do more. I did not know about the visiting student at a different UC possibility. I will start looking into that now.
Look into taking some summer classes at the Duke Marine lab and then email some of the people doing research there. My S did that after sophomore year since he did not get any internships. (I don’t recall who he did the research with.) Anyway that was a short summer of research and classes but it set him up for next summer internship at Mote Marine lab.
Of course apply to lots of places but any experience that can be gained from exposing one to other nontraditional jobs/classes will help the resume when applying for those choice internships.