OP- suggest that your son look into local non-profits for a “self made” research role. Local hospital? They spit out data every day with neither the capacity nor the skills to figure it out. What’s the average release time for a laproscopic surgery patient, and does the shorter stay correlate with better long term outcomes or is it just a cost-savings move? How many hip replacement patients end up having to redo the surgery, and what can the data tell us about why? That kind of thing. It’s not “math math” but it’s applied math in a very marketable area for next year’s paid internship with a device manufacturer or pharma company. One of my kids discovered that the most valuable skill in an actual paid research role in a lab was…. statistical programming. Not just plug and chug- but a lot of experience with large datasets, Matlab, R, etc. Every research team is going to be churning out numbers of some kind, and the missing link is often having someone there who can interpret the phenomena.
He can balance his own “research role” with his old restaurant job and end the summer with cash AND some practical work experience.
Does your town have a food pantry? They usually have data and do nothing with it (nobody knows how). Someone who can create an algorithm to better match the supply (supermarkets and restaurants donating food) with demand (the unhoused can’t make macaroni and cheese without a stove or a pot) is going to do something very, very valuable for an organization which runs on fumes.
We’re coming up on the midterms. Every single candidate (national, state, local) has a polling operation. Some sophisticated with people with degrees in statistics and applied math, and some that are basically “are we up or down? What do we know about suburban women?” Campaigns are ALWAYS accepting volunteers, and these are great learning experiences.
Good luck to him. This is a very challenging year for summer work….