Hey everyone,
I was wondering if the UMass Research Intensives are any good for rising junior summer. If I went, I’d be doing research for 6 weeks in a lab on a topic relevant to my intended major (35h a week, 6 college credits). However, I don’t know that much about what makes a summer program strong or how “good” the research I’ll do is, as I know the amount of involvement varies per program. Does anyone have experience with this program?
Contact them and ask to speak with former students.
What does “any good” mean to you?
Challenging project, learning the basics, covering off “how to document in a laboratory”, being exposed to the statistical packages which scientists use for their studies, logging results? What are you hoping to learn through the program?
I think that the main issue is to do something that is interesting to you, and that seems worthwhile to you.
To me this sounds pretty cool.
One thing that you might learn about research: It takes a while, it is very easy for things to go wrong, and you are likely to spend quite a bit of time trying to figure out what went wrong and doing it better next time. This is perfectly okay. This is what pretty much anyone who was successful in research did to get there.