Syeda Chowdhury:
5 tips for your summer lab project
Congratulations you’ve bagged a project for the summer! Or maybe you haven’t yet and are still looking. Either way, here are my top tips for getting a summer internship and thriving in the job.
1. Email Email Email. You’ve got to be careful with this as mass emailing people wont get you anywhere. You need to be smart, first think of the area of your course which you enjoy the most. Maybe there’s a lecturer whose content you really enjoyed. If possible then ask them personally- as in, straight after the lecture. Trust me, it's hard to say no in person.
​
After asking them, follow up with an email so that they know your face and name. Genuinely try to read some of their papers and the work they do, and say why their works interests you. The key to getting replies are long personalised emails. And remember that you’re not just restricted to lecturers; the university has thousands of researchers who don’t necessarily lecture.
Google and LinkedIn are your friends here, it’ll help you find researchers whose work interests you and in the city you wanna work in. It’s important to be flexible with dates you can work in order to fit in with the supervisor.
​
2. Funding. Once you have secured a supervisor this is your next aim. It is tricky but if you play it right it’ll work out. The way to get this is through external companies (EastBio, SRF, Carnegie etc). If you look up funding opportunities for undergraduate vacation scholarships you’ll find companies willing to fund certain areas of research. The key thing here is staying ahead of deadlines.
​
Funding applications takes time and your supervisor can't do it all for you. You need to research and understand your project perfectly in order to write out an excellent application. Keep in mind if you were not successful in getting funding from external companies, the university may have opportunities. Be sure to ask your personal tutor or head of school!
​
3. You made it! You’ve got the supervisor and may or may not have secured funding for it. Now you’ve got to make it through the summer working on your project. First things first, keep a journal from Day One. Write down everything and anything you do, even silly little things to make a habit! This will help you so much later when you need to write up a paper or even when things go wrong, it’ll help you keep track.
4. Don’t be afraid to ask for help! Literally everyone in the lab was an undergrad once, don’t just wander around being clueless, the quicker you work the more efficient your project will be and the cooler things you get to experience!
5. Enjoy the experience. If you’re interested in research then this is a taste of the working lifestyle; the 9-5 Monday to Friday type of work. Where you get to ask scientific questions and answer them yourself, and contribute to the world of research. Take the time and realise the impact you’re making! It might be small now but can lead to greater things.
More from the Spring '19 Issue