On-Campus this Summer? Read This.

Posted on by Amaya Dressler

Rockefeller College in the summer.
Rockefeller College in the summer. Photo Credits: Daniel A. Day (2014)

So you’ve been brave, reached out to that professor whose research you’ve always admired, and just confirmed a summer on campus doing the research of your dreams. Whether you’re a part of an on-campus research cohort (like ReMatch or HMEI) or starting up your own independent work, summer on-campus is a special, if not bewildering, experience. If you are anything like me, the first few weeks may be a little confusing as you figure out what is expected of you and what exactly you want for yourself. Even though you’re doing research full-time, you’ll likely find that you’re substantially less busy than you were during the school year. This raises some important questions about how you choose to spend your free time. Who are you outside of research? How do you navigate the campus when you’re no longer a full-time student? Beyond time-management, what else should you know about being on-campus in the summer? Below I’ve compiled a short list of advice I’ve found most helpful during my summers on campus.

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Reflecting on my Summer Research Internship

Posted on by Abhimanyu Banerjee

As I mentioned in a previous post, this last summer, I assisted in the research by Dr. Elmira Kalhor at the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment (C-PREE) in examining the effect of anomalous weather on economic activity, as part of an internship funded by the High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI) at Princeton University. Under Dr. Kalhor’s guidance, it became a fulfilling experience as I had the opportunity to formulate a model of how business activity is affected by extreme weather and thus apply many of the economic tools and theories that I learned to a practical space.

Our work focused on business effects of extreme weather, up to and including hurricanes like Harvey

Now that it has been about three weeks since I gave my final presentation of my work to HMEI, I wanted to take the opportunity to reflect on my time there. While the internship was very enjoyable, it also presented me with many challenges – technical ones related to the statistical analysis and the research itself and practical/logistical issues in terms of having a valuable and fulfilling internship. In this post, I hope to discuss some of the more practical issues and guidelines that you could use to help maximize the efficiency of your internship experience, especially if you are working on a research-intensive project.

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Worried About a Lack of In-Person Research Experience? Don’t Be. Here’s Why.

Posted on by Bridget Denzer

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, a lot of in-person internships and research positions for students have been transitioned to remote opportunities. Last summer after my first year of college, I opted to take online classes over the summer because in-person opportunities were not a possibility. For this upcoming summer, I was hoping to gain laboratory experience in person, but my internship was also transitioned online. With only one summer left before I apply to graduate school, this left me with a looming question: will I have enough in-person research experience before I apply to graduate school?

Although this question bothered me for a while, I realized that I was approaching this issue from the wrong perspective. I feel as though many students are probably dealing with similar issues now that many summer opportunities have been canceled or moved online due to the pandemic. In this article, I am going to walk through the reasoning behind why you should not worry too much about lacking in-person research experience and also include some additional opportunities you should be on the lookout for. 

In-person research positions may not be available right now, but you can still take advantage of your remote research experiences.
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Tips for Finding Policy-based Internships

Posted on by Abhimanyu Banerjee

Perhaps one of the more difficult aspects of being a college student is looking for  summer internship opportunities. Furthermore, as I discovered this year in my own search for something to do this summer, there can often be unique challenges for students who are primarily interested in public policy. As a (prospective) economics major, it often felt like no matter how hard I searched on Handshake, nearly every internship that I found was in finance or investment banking. While these were undoubtedly interesting opportunities, this was a little disappointing to me as I was hoping that I would be able to use the summer to explore policy and economics research, and maybe even get a better understanding of possible career paths. 

My initially discouraging internship search notwithstanding, be assured that these kinds of internships do exist. I myself was fortunate enough to find and eventually participate in such an opportunity– but only after I began to approach my search in a different way.

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Five Tips for a Regret-Free Thesis Summer

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I remember feeling blindsided by thesis talk my junior spring. I was in the middle of my second JP—I didn’t have a topic, an adviser, or any idea where to start. But I knew I needed to start my research in the summer before senior year. If I had learned anything from my JPs, it was that I would need all the time I could get to complete a research project of this scale.  

Juniors: whether you’ve already applied for thesis funding or haven’t yet thought about your thesis at all, now is the time to make a summer thesis plan. Remember: every hour you invest over the summer is an hour saved during the semester, when you’ll be back to balancing coursework, job/grad school applications, and extracurricular obligations. 

This summer, I was doing an internship in São Paulo, but I spent my evenings and weekends at a local library, reading sources for my thesis. It wasn’t fun, but I’ve thanked myself for it every day this year.

As I prepare to submit my thesis this month, I’ve thought back to my own junior spring and collected five things I wish I’d known before my thesis summer: 

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Post-Princeton Life: An Interview with Bennett McIntosh ’16

Posted on by Nanako Shirai

For this year’s Spring Seasonal Series, entitled Post-Princeton Life: The Experiences of PCUR Alumni, each correspondent has selected a PCUR alum to interview about what they have been up to. We hope that these interviews will provide helpful insight into the many different paths Princeton students take after graduation. Here, Nanako shares her interview.

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In my last post, I wrote about how to get the most out of your short-term research internship. In this post, I provide some more insight I got about how to get the most out of my summer internship— this time from a more credible source: a Princeton alumnus. I interviewed Bennett McIntosh ’16, who used to write for PCUR, about his Princeton research experience.

Here’s a bit about Bennett:

Bennett McIntosh ’16 studied chemistry at Princeton and is currently a freelance science writer.

Bennett McIntosh is a freelance science writer and reporter living in Boston, covering the intersections of scientific research, technological change, and social welfare. He is currently helping to relaunch Science for the People, a magazine of science and politics whose first iteration grew out of the 1960s anti-war movement.  While studying chemistry at Princeton, he wrote opinion columns for the Daily Princetonian, science stories for Innovation, and lousy jokes for the Princeton University Band.

 

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Learning from Summer Experiences – Redefining Research

Posted on by Nanako Shirai

Since many of you (including myself) have probably started thinking about your upcoming summer plans, in this post, I wanted to do a reflection on my past summer and how my perception of research changed through that experience.

At the Kyoto Symposium, scholars from the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University met up for a poster presentation. This is at the Nijo Castle.

This past summer, I spent 11 weeks in Japan, which was something that was only possible thanks to Princeton’s incredibly long summer. (For readers unfamiliar with Princeton’s schedule — this happens because Princeton starts the fall semester later than most schools.)

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What To Do When You’re Rejected From Both PICS and IIP

Posted on by Nanako Shirai

We’re done with half the academic year and you’ve probably started to think about what you’re going to do this upcoming summer. Many of you have probably taken advantage of two of the largest summer internship programs sponsored by Princeton: Princeton Internships in Civic Service (PICS) and International Internship Program (IIP). Some of you may be lucky enough to have gotten a positive response. However, some of you, like me as a first year, were probably told that your application “unfortunately did not work out this year.”

One of the locations I interned at was the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application at Kyoto University in Kyoto, Japan.

But have no fear! While I was rejected from both PICS and IIP as a first year, I still managed to participate in two great internships (one eight weeks and the other four weeks) that led to a spectacular summer — in this post, I’d like to share how. (For another great post about Princeton summer opportunities, look at this post by fellow correspondent Raya!)

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Summer 2019 Cheat Sheet

Posted on by Raya Ward

Princeton is full of opportunities–it should be easy to plan a cool summer, right?

Sure it should. But in reality, just thinking of summer 2019 is overwhelming.

You just finished fall midterms and already everyone is talking about what they want to do next summer. Your inbox is swamped with emails that mention dozens of programs. Campus is littered with posters throwing deadlines around, but it’s nearly impossible to make any sense of it all, especially while managing a Princeton course load!

If you haven’ t thought about summer yet do not stress. This time last year,  I was still undecided about my major, and trying to simply decide what extra-curriculars to be a part of. And yet, I had a great summer:

Summer after my first year at Princeton,  through the International Internship Program, I interned in Kathmandu, Nepal at a contemporary art gallery. This was my first time abroad, and I had a phenomenal experience. During my internship, I designed a catalogue, shadowed the gallery’s director,  and even designed/installed my own exhibition. Though the internship was unpaid, my summer was fully funded by Princeton.

Summer after my first year, I interned at an art gallery in Kathmandu, Nepal through the International Internship Program (IIP).

The point is, I think its completely unnecessary to start stressing for May in October. So, to calm any nerves and make planning a rocking summer a bit easier, here’s a brief overview of some popular summer ideas for underclass students. Included are deadlines, brief descriptions and testimonials from past students.

Disclaimer: This is NOT a complete list. Just a list of popular options and those that my friends have explored. Also, these opportunities are not limited to first-year and sophomore students.  Juniors and seniors may also take advantage of some of the programs mentioned below. 

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When Research Gets Too Real, Too Soon

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This past summer, my research made me cry.

At Princeton, academic research often felt extraordinarily low stakes. Even an argument with a strong motive could feel comfortably removed from the realities of my life. In the academy, we aim for empirical arguments, not personal ones. And though this presented challenges of its own, it was easy to forget how safe it feels to be merely an observer, the omniscient narrator to someone else’s story.  Last semester, for instance, my research focused on medieval history and African-American poetry, two topics firmly removed from my day-to-day reality as a white person in the 21st century.

My research focused on the history of Bears Ears, a sacred landscape in danger

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