Internships for undergrads?

fallenchemist
Sat, 19 Apr 2014 23:27:37 +0000

OK, that helps. Since you are talking about during the school year, I am wondering what the difference is between an internship and doing research on campus. I understand there is a difference in the environment and gaining some experience within the corporate world, but if you are looking for opportunities to be involved in work that concerns your areas of interest (and my apologies but I am not coming up with a way to connect molecular biology and linguistics into one type of job. Although they are both interesting majors they seem fairly disconnected to me. However if you are thinking of trying to establish a connection between biological pathways and language, that would be fascinating!) then it seems to me that finding a professor doing research you are interested in and joining their group would make the most sense. Especially since during typical days during the semester you won’t have a lot of spare time to go to a job.

It is true that the school is going to be the basis for helping you find most opportunities. I think that is true most places when you are talking about internships rather than a regular job. New Orleans is a smallish city. Pittsburgh is not only larger, but has a much larger corporate base. Historical sidenote: until the corporate upheavals of the 1970’s and 80’s with so many mergers and takeovers, Pittsburgh was home to more corporate headquarters of Fortune 500 companies than any city in the US other than New York and Chicago. US Steel, Alcoa, PPG, Westinghouse, Gulf Oil, and several others. So you are right with that legacy and the establishment now of one of the larger research and healthcare entities in UPMC, there are going to me more corporate type jobs in the area around Pitt. Tulane isn’t really that remote from downtown, it is only 4 miles. You could bike it easily, there is the streetcar (a bit slow admittedly), and Tulane runs a shuttle regularly because there is the medical school and now also the School of Social Work in the downtown area, not to mention some offices Tulane keeps there. So any science opportunities you would find within the medical complex are actually pretty accessible in a short ride. There are several start-up companies centered around scientific work done at Tulane, but I don’t know if any of them have roles for molecular biologists. The school would know. New Orleans has been cited as one of the hot entrepreneurial cities for the last several years. I know a lot of these revolve around IT and also biomedical engineering, and I am sure other areas as well. How this might impact you in particular is very hard to say.

Tulane regularly has groups travel to other countries for research, especially Central and South America from what I can see, and also I have noticed several groups going to Africa and India. Some of these are focused on scientific projects. Here is a list of various contacts and research groups associated with Tulane https://tulane.edu/research/research-for-students.cfm?utm_source=Fire%20Engine%20RED&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=no-melt.student.research-ops&utm_source=Fire%20Engine%20RED&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=yield.parent.research I would suggest that you contact the ones that seem most relevant to you and ask about opportunities both during the semester and in the summers. You might want to especially focus on the Center for Bioenvironmental Research. There is an area of research where I could imagine that a cell and molecular major could contribute strongly.

I am sure you will have more questions. Oh, I meant to ask. Where is home for you?