When Skylar Martin arrived at Kansas State University in May of 1998 on a Research Experiences for Undergraduates fellowship, the only previous lab chemistry the college sophomore had consisted of predictable experiments designed to demonstrate familiar principles. Her summer at Kansas State offered her a glimpse of life as a research chemist, probing the leading edge of scientific inquiry, and she liked what she saw. By the time she returned to Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo., that fall for her junior year, she'd made sufficient progress with a portable cell-gel method that she subsequently presented her work at regional and national ACS meetings and coauthored a scientific publication on the research. Today, Martin is a graduate student in chemistry—at, fittingly, Kansas State University.

Gaining research experience as an undergraduate offers a number of benefits, including firsthand knowledge of how compatible one might find graduate school, the personal relationships with research faculty, a strong addition to the resume, and sometimes some cash to boot. Summer fellowships and internships offer a chance to branch out intellectually and geographically, while students working in on-campus research efforts during the academic year may have a choice between receiving course credit and picking up a paycheck. The private sector and the government also offer some research opportunities for undergraduate chemists, although these often tend toward the applied rather than basic science. Depending on the size, research activity, and location of one's school, as well as one's personal interests, one or more of these opportunities may be well worth pursuing. And although landing opportunities gets easier as students advance through their curriculum, it's never too early to look into research work; gaining experience as, say, a sophomore only multiplies the choices available to a student by senior year.

Some universities make on-campus research opportunities relatively available to undergraduates. At California State University-Los Angeles, for example, the majority of undergrads in chemistry get involved in research work at some point. "We only offer masters degrees, so the philosophy is that undergrads do research," says chemistry professor Scott Nickolasen. He estimates that the typical student researcher spends 10 hours a week in a lab during the year and researches full-time during the summer. By the time they graduate, many Cal State-L.A. students have considerable lab experience, and that looks fantastic on applications for graduate programs and lab-science jobs. At many institutions, similar opportunities are available, if not as prevalent, but they often go unadvertised. Students need to take the initiative to approach faculty members and seek out those who have both the time and the funds to bring an undergraduate into their lab.

At research institutions that devote considerable resources to training graduate students, on-campus research opportunities for undergrads may be relatively few and far between. However, such universities often have relationships with nearby companies and hospitals, and can facilitate students' efforts to find research work with these outside partners. Some schools mandate formal cooperative education to give students outside professional experience, and they'll help place students into co-op jobs that grant them that experience. Even if your university has no organized co-op program, individual professors may be aware of nearby private-sector labs that take on dedicated students as interns. Preemptively contacting pharmaceutical and technology companies in the region may also turn up research opportunities open to enterprising undergraduates.

National laboratories, such as those run by the Department of Energy, offer undergraduates another route into research, says Dean Waldow of Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash., who administers a Web site called the Chemistry Internet Resource for Research by Undergraduate Students. Federally sponsored programs such as the Energy Research Undergraduates Laboratory Fellowships (ERULF) offer a range of summer and term-long research opportunities at various government lab facilities.

For students unable to find research work on or near their campus during the academic year, summers are crucial windows in which to gain experience. The popular Research Experiences for Undergraduates programs, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), supports undergrads in summertime research, usually at institutions other than where they're enrolled for a degree. REU programs vary in their details from one university to the next, but they typically last 10 weeks and pay a stipend of $3,000 or more. Some also cover room and board, offer special seminar series, and provide other perks. A complete list of universities offering REU, as well as links to the individual schools' REU information, is available at NSF's Web site.

For Angela M. Buffone of Suffolk University in Boston, Mass., her REU at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif., proved a formative experience. She'd originally planned to go to medical school, but she found that research suited her surprisingly well. "That changed my focus from the MCAT to the GRE," she says. She'll enroll this fall at the medical school of the University of Massachusetts—but it's a Ph.D. in biomedical science, not an M.D., toward which she'll be studying.

Buffone particularly appreciated the opportunity REU gave her to get experience within a specialized area, in her case, polymer chemistry. "Because you work on one project, just like you would in graduate school," she says, "you [develop] some specialization." The lab work actually helped Buffone gear up for her advanced physical chemistry course back at Suffolk the following year, she says.

The goal of REU is to give students exposure to research "before they have to make the choice about whether or not they're going to go to graduate school," says Anne Myers Kelley, who oversees the program at Kansas State University. Expressed interest in grad school, however, can be an important quality on applications to programs at Ph.D.-granting institutions, since many use REU as an informal recruiting tool. Students are most likely to get accepted during their junior year for the summer that follows, especially if they're interested in topics such as physical chemistry that younger students are less likely to have encountered. Sophomores and even freshmen, however, can sometimes find places. REU is primarily intended for students at small colleges and universities without research programs, but talented students from larger universities who've just been unable to find research opportunities close to home shouldn't be discouraged from applying. Many REU programs also actively encourage minority and women candidates.

The most important qualifications for the fellowship, most REU administrators say, is a solid record of good grades, especially in chemistry and other science courses. Letters of recommendation from professors or employers are also part of the application process for REUs (not to mention, for many other off-campus research opportunities). Doing good work in a summer job in industry—and garnering a positive letter from your boss—might therefore open doors to research in the future, even if the work itself isn't research in a strict sense. On the flip side, slacking off in a boring job could come back to haunt you. Even if you know better than to ask a displeased employer for a recommendation, selection committees may sniff out what has happened.

While only U.S. citizens are eligible for REU, institutions that offer the program often have independent sources of funding that they can use at their discretion. Students who make their interests in doing research known to faculty at other institutions may sometimes learn about grants available to support summer opportunities, says Shenda Baker, who administers the REU program at Harvey Mudd.

Finally, a caveat to all but the tireless about pursuing term-time research: Fitting in long hours at the lab bench between seminars and study groups can be exhausting. US Department of Education studies have shown that students who add more than 15 hours of employment on top of a full course load get lower grades. So unless you receive academic credit for research work during the term and can therefore take fewer classes, be careful about piling on so many extracurricular commitments that your grades begin to slip. That won't help when it comes to completing graduate school applications.

Ben Harder contributes to Science News and NationalGeographic.com. He has also written about science and education for U.S.News & World Report.

 

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