Undergraduate research internships part 1 — why should you get them?
Research internships are a brilliant way to boost your profile, especially if you are preparing for graduate school. They give you a brief exposure to what research is really like and allow you to connect with a diverse set of extremely talented people. Now a lot of you would already have some research exposure (if you don’t, keep reading), thanks to projects you undertake at your own university. This makes people wonder about the motive behind applying for research internships in the first place. The application process is tedious and comes with a high chance of failure. But with good effort comes good reward.
Ideally, research internships seek to provide students with exposure to disciplines and fields that are not accessible at their home university/institution. These topics can range from mathematics and engineering to history and politics. Research internships are also beneficial if one wishes to switch to a different field than what they are currently pursuing. These reasons arise out of need. But one must first spend time on understanding their needs and expectations out of an off-campus research experience. As a freshman, you would probably be exposed to a plethora of new ideas and research upon joining university. The first thing you should be doing is embrace these ideas, carefully evaluate them, and see where your interest lies. Our interest in certain ideas is just surface level, and pursuing them might see you losing momentum fairly quickly. Hence, take time to understand your interests. It is a fairly subjective process and might take anywhere from one month to one semester or longer. Talk to seniors, read articles, research publications, and books about the topics that seem to interest you. You don't need to understand every detail of what you are reading. Reading will introduce you to the vast depths of academia. This can range from rigorous math to convoluted theory. After all this, if you are still interested in a field and have a motive to pursue it, you can go ahead with it.
Tip: Just because you like a particular field, do not close off your mind to new ideas. Give them some space to manifest themselves. More often than ever, you will discover new synergies where your efforts might lead to better results.
So you now know your interests, but you might wonder how to act upon them. When applying for research internships, the host professor/scientist would expect you to have some experience in the field you claim to be so interested in. Your professors on campus have a major role to play here — working with them would serve as a stepping stone in your journey to securing an internship. Regardless of what topic/field you are interested in, there will be someone in your university working on a related field. The degree of overlap depends a lot on the type of university you study in and the type of program you are enrolled in. The best way to identify this is by browsing through the university faculty pages. They consolidate background information on all professors working at your university. If you are interested in a particular professor’s work, you can look them up on scholarly websites like Google Scholar or Researchgate.
Example: Space propulsion interests me a lot. However, the university I study in does not offer a program in Aerospace Engineering. As a result of that, there was nobody at my university who worked directly on propulsion. Thus, I decided to pursue related fields in fluid and gas dynamics. That helped me strengthen my research profile.
Once you identify who you want to work with from within your university, you can mail them and seek guidance. Your willingness to learn often serves as an ice-breaker and professors are usually very glad to guide students interested in academia and research. Working with someone from your university helps you develop skills and gain knowledge that might facilitate your understanding of the topic you are actually interested in.
In addition to the above reasons that must have already motivated you to pursue a research internship, they come with other benefits. These opportunities allow you to network with people working in different universities/labs based in different countries. These people are directly engaged in the field of your interest and have the capacity to influence your career in a variety of ways. A good working relationship with them would motivate them to write recommendation letters for you which is a necessary (and a crucial) part of your graduate school applications. Hence, the benefits of these opportunities are multifold.
Armed with preliminary research experience and grassroots understanding about a particular topic, you are now more or less ready to start applying to research internships. The next few instalments will focus on CVs, cover letters, and follow-up emails. I plan to keep the series general yet concise so that students from all disciplines can benefit from this. Keeping in mind the nature of the pandemic, I would try to highlight the importance of remotely supervised internships in one of the later articles. Find the next article here.
If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes — then learn how to do it later — Sir Richard Branson
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The content here is a reflection of my process of applying to research internships and my undergraduate thesis. I suggest you also converse with other people and get to know their process as well. If a technique different from the stuff mentioned here works for you, I suggest you stick to that. All the best!