The Chemistry Advisor
REU-- Research Experience for Undergraduates
and other Summer Research Opportunities
last revised: October 16, 200 document is ... advisor/advisor_REU.htm
For about 15 years the National Science Foundation has been supporting a number of programs that allow undergraduate science majors to spend a summer doing scientific research. There are also other foundations, corporations and universities that offer similar opportunities. For the purpose of discussion we will use the phrase REU to refer to all of these programs. BGSU has been an NSF REU site for the past 12 years.
The goal of the REU program is to give students an opportunity to explore a modern research problem under expert supervision. This is done for 10-12 weeks during the summer, working on the project on a full time basis. Most programs include on going seminars and presentations of research goals and progress. Many student researchers become coauthors of published reseach and many present their research at regional and national scientific meetings.
The REU program covers all of the sciences and often emphasizes specialty areas and interdisciplinary fields (like BGSU's REU program that focuses in the photochemical sciences.) You can find programs in all areas of chemistry and biochemistry, chemical engineering, in chemical aspects of biology and medicine, materials sciences, polymers, nanotechnology, environmental studies, nuclear chemistry, fuels and metallurgy. It's a great opportunity to move beyond the confines of the normal sequence of chemistry courses.
There are about 100 chemistry programs nationally, each taking 10-20 participants and there are probably a comparable number of interdisciplinary programs that recruit from chemistry. Most programs favor students who have completed sophomore organic chemistry, but a few students are accepted directly from General Chemistry courses. (Sorry, the program is not available to students who will have graduated in May.)
These programs vary somewhat but most have similar features
- Students are selected from a wide range of schools
- NSF frowns on programs that admit over 1/3 from their own students
- Some programs are national, others are regional
- Some programs have special target groups, but most have open criteria
- The participants are reasonably well paid during the REU sessions
- Participants receive a stipend ($1000-2500)
- Some programs pay travel expenses
- Some programs provide housing and/or meal allowances (accounting for much of the variation in stipends)
- As a rule, each student researcher works on a personal research project under the direction of a senior scientist
- Most programs are found in university departments or in research institutes
- some are found at national labs like Argonne, Los Alamos, Stony Brook or at governmental labs like Department of Agriculture of Environmental Protection Agency
- some are found at medical centers
- some are associated with corporate research laboratories
- Most programs have application deadlines in February-March
This is an excellent opportunity to do some interesting science, to explore new academic areas, to enhance your academic portfolio and to spend some time in a new region of the country. We've had BGSU students in chemistry programs at U. of Michigan, North Carolina, U. Kentucky, in oceanographic research at U. Washington (Seattle) and in medical research at the Cleveland Clinic. BGSU students are actively recruited by these programs and you have excellent chances of being accepted. Of course, you are invited also to apply to the BGSU program but we can only accept a limited number of our own students.
We will be displaying recruiting posters in the display case outside Overman 24 (by the computers) beginning in mid October. We wil also be posting (at this Web site) a list of known REU sites, probably around mid November. We strongly encourage all chemistry majors to participate in one of these programs.
for information on the BGSU REU program, contact Dr. John Cable
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