Ah summer! It's a time for easy living, a relaxed teaching schedule, perhaps a leisurely sabbatical, some tall cold drinks, and... undergraduate interns. The National Science Foundation's Research Experiences for Undergraduates program places about 140 undergrads in biology labs every summer, while the National Institutes of Health invites about 800 undergraduate researchers to work in its intramural laboratories in an average year. These aspiring scientists can waste your precious reagents, make egregious miscalculations, and just take up space. But they can also bring big rewards. A summer internship done right can not only launch a young scientist's career, but can also further your research and push it in directions you never expected. All in 10 short weeks.
Here are some stories of successful internships and the tricks that made them work.
The Mentor—Johanna Joyce, Memorial Sloan-Kettering cancer biologist The Intern—Alison Spencer, 21. Internship: summer 2008 The Program—SURP (Summer Undergraduate Research ...