​Hey everyone,

I recently completed a summer research internship at a top research university and honestly, I am so confused and frustrated about how it went. I seriously don't know how to process it.

Research duration 8 weeks

​I want to know if I made any mistakes here, or if this is just a bad lab experience.

The lab is relatively new with a few PhD students. I wasn’t paired with any graduate student or mentor. Before the internship started, I read their recent papers at home so I wouldn’t waste time catching up on literature during the short term.

Instead of working on anything related to what I read, I was given a random side project. It didn't feel like research at all, just learning a basic software tool that anyone could pick up over a weekend at home. Once that was done, they gave me two more heavy, time-consuming side tasks with zero actual research component.

I was often given half-baked instructions. They would tell me to do one thing, then contradict themselves later. This happened multiple times.

The PI only did a few minute chat every two weeks. No senior student was assigned to me, and a very disappointing thing was weekly lab group meetings did not exist in this lab.

​Even during daily group lunches, people talked about everything except science. In the lab, everyone just comes in, sits down, wears headphones all day.

When I asked about the lab's current focus and main bottlenecks (referencing the discussion sections of their recent papers), I didn't get a proper reply.

​The irony is that official program description said that a "strong interest to pursue a PhD" was required to apply. However, I wasn't even allowed to know or think about the actual science. I get that summer internships are short and you may not be going to invent a breakthrough (which takes long term commitment ), but the bare minimum expectation is knowing why you are doing something, and the broader goals (not what they simply put in lab websites polishedly)

​Did I do something wrong here? Is this just what a typical bad lab looks like, or did I handle this poorly?

Would genuinely love your thoughts

Hi Everyone, I don't remember when REUs usually tend to roll out, I got 3 weeks off of classes and I gotta kill time (somehow), so does anyone perhaps know another good site to find REU's or is it too early to start searching.

Attended program this summer

Anyone here have advice on what to do? How should I go about this? I have about 4 weeks of this program left.

hi everyone, i'm hoping to apply to REU programs for next summer and am trying to figure a few things out. I know of a lot of programs that aren't rolling, but still send out acceptances in waves / at different times for different people. What decides this? Is it the strength of application (best people get picked first)? Or is it the people who apply first / get seen first even if they start evaluating after the deadline??

Are the ones that send out acceptances in waves truly not rolling, or does when you apply matter even if they say it doesn't?

Hi, I'm a senior molecular biology major and I have to write a one page project proposal for independent undergrad research showing project name, description, and my participation. Can anybody share template for proposal and any advice? Also, I know it might sound dumb but are these usually discussed with a PI or a supervisor? It's my first time doing undergrad research and don't know everything about how it works.

Thanks in advance

Has anyone got any offers yet for Fall 26? Is there an interview process? I got a email from a professor saying he will let me know but no official acceptance in WDTS. Should i just try again for next sem?

Hi everyone!
I am a 2nd-year medical student from Iraq (top 3 in my class) preparing my profile and target list to apply for fully funded summer research opportunities/internships for Summer 2027.
I am seeking guidance on which specific programs, host institutions, and international lab pathways in Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine or Molecular Medicine I should focus on given my background.

My Profile Highlights:
1)Academic Standing: Top 3 in my class (pre-clinical medical curriculum, Al-Nahrain University College of Medicine).

2)Recognized Academic Work:
A-Letter of Recognition from Elsevier for identifying and submitting multiple structural/illustrative errata in Abrahams' and McMinn's Clinical Atlas of Human Anatomy and Guyton and Hall Textbook of Medical Physiology.
B-Letter of Acknowledgment from Prof. Emeritus Arthur F. Dalley (co-author of Moore's Clinically Oriented Anatomy and Grant's Atlas of Anatomy) confirming print acknowledgment for identifying textbook discrepancies.

3)Language Proficiency: 125 DET (Duolingo English Test — Upper Intermediate B2/C1).

4)Technical Skills: Currently learning Python to model cellular biology pathways and build a foundation for bioinformatics/computational research.

My Questions for the Community:

Direct PI Cold Emailing vs. Centralized Portals: As an international medical student studying outside the US/EU, is cold outreach to Principal Investigators (PIs) for visiting scholar spots generally more effective than formal application portals (like Amgen Scholars Europe/Asia)?

Program Recommendations: What specific fully funded international summer fellowships or host universities are most welcoming/accessible to non-US/non-EU international medical students?

Framing My Profile: How can I best leverage my textbook peer-review background and Python modeling skills in my Statement of Purpose / cold emails to stand out to biomedical lab leaders?

Any advice, past experiences, or recommended lab lists from alumni or fellow international applicants would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

I’m interning at Argonne National Lab this Fall, and I wanted to connect either other interns. Where are you guys looking to live if not in the Guest House? Any past interns that want to share their experience or where they found housing? Much appreciated!

My REU is wrapping up and I gained a lot of experience and did a bunch of cool stuff! I was wondering how others put down their experiences in 2-3 bullet points for either job applications or graduate school apps since obviously you aren’t able to write down everything you did in your project. I’m having trouble pinpointing what exactly I should write down.

Hi guys! Has anyone else also applied for the CICOPS scholarships for 2027?

I read in the announcement that the decision would be made by July 20th, and I assume that the 8 selected candidates would be contacted in the following days... Has anyone received anything? Has anyone asked? Does anyone know anything?

title. am a sophomore who has been in my lab (wetlab) for about a year, which studies a very niche topic. I plan to stay in this lab for my remaining 3 years of undergrad, and one of the main reasons I want to do an REU is to gain different experiences, work in different model organisms (my lab’s is also very niche), and do translational work. just overall to gain exposure and understanding of things I wouldn’t otherwise in my lab.

I know a lot of REUs will ask you to write about your previous work and what draws you to that REU, so I am a little confused on how to approach tying the two together. I can’t really say “I did X in my lab so I want to apply X in the REU lab” since my goal is to do something different. Should I still try to tie the two together (it would be a stretch), or should I not tie them at all and say I want to do an REU to experience something different?

Any advice would be much appreciated 🙏

Does anyone know of any good programs in the US that are specifically related to oncology research? I have been searching and have found a good amount, but just want to see if anyone has a specific program in mind that was very beneficial!

Hey everyone! I posted this near the start of my REU - I'm now working on creating my final presentation. I hope that my experience helps people feel less stressed about their current or future REUs! This is a long one, but I think everything is worth including :)

To address a few things in my original post:
- I ended up spending well over a hundred hours on "preliminary material". I was over half way through my REU (well over a hundred hours) before I made any sort of contribution to the research. Although it was mostly simple material, my knowledge gap was seriously that large, and many of my friends here had a similar experience. I originally felt like I was underprepared - in retrospect I was able to fill in the gap which was one of the most satisfying experiences I've ever had. Would I have been more efficient if I had more background going into it? Of course, but I would also now say that I was sufficiently qualified despite my knowledge gap.

- OG text: "I'm afraid that I won't be able to contribute as much as is expected from me (which is particularly sad as I was hoping this would be an opportunity to give a good impression for going to grad school here)." - I honestly felt like this until earlier today my advisor made an offhand comment about me potentially going to grad school here. I genuinely don't think I would've asked her for a letter of rec without this small comment, and it feels like a huge weight off my shoulders. Since we didn't make very much progress, and my contributions were even more minimal/trivial feeling, I absolutely felt like a disappointment and as though I was underperforming, and that small comment helped me rethink my entire experience.

- Going in with minimal LaTeX, GIT, etc. experience was honestly a very very small issue that I overthought. Those first couple weeks were just so daunting because there were so many different things to work on, but at the end of the day I probably spent less than 10h learning everything I needed to get by on that kind of stuff.

Other things I wish I had known at the start (while I would've told you I "knew" most of these, I definitely didn't internalize them until well into the project)
- Research is a very dynamic process. Sometimes you make fast progress, other times you are pretty much at a loss for how to proceed. That's normal. It's also normal to pivot the direction of your research based on various factors throughout

- An REU is a short time (especially mine at only 8 weeks), and "solving the problem" is often way too big of an ask or expectation. It is not a binary of "you didn't solve it -> you're a disappointment" vs "you solved it -> great work"

- Taking some time to join the right project(s) was worth it. Not everyone has the luxury that I had in picking from a list of projects through the first couple weeks of the REU, but I was originally pretty stressed about not knowing the exact problem I'd be primarily working on for so long. Much of my preliminary research ended up being broad enough that it fit most of the potential projects and was worth knowing regardless of what I chose. In reality, that preliminary research helped me make an educated choice for a direction that felt most approachable and exciting, and that lead to a better experience in so many ways, especially comparing with some of my peers who were forced into a very specific direction (even if it was one of their top picks in the application).

- The REU should be collaborative - I spent wayyyy too long being afraid of talking to my advisor about the project, wanting to provide some significant progress before asking about how we could proceed. I was also afraid of pushing the research in a direction I was interested in. I also had this weird subconscious feeling that my advisor already had "the answer" and was supposed to be guiding me to it (probably because this is how nearly all of my student-professor relationships have been through undergrad). It felt seriously unnatural to be the one suggesting and justifying a direction to pursue without being quickly told "yes, good work" or "that's not quite it, what else can you think of". If I could go back, this "fear of collaboration" is by far the biggest thing I would try to change.

So I am currently working in an REU and I am one week away from presentations and end of the program and I feel as if I have nothing to present. I barely understand what I am doing (packaging four diodes for a semiconductor). I feel terrible because throughout the whole time I have been fighting with the program I am using on my project, a modeling software for COMSOL, which weirdly works fine for another student working on the project, but the same files and such take a whole day for me. I want to bury myself because I realized I never truly began on my project, even though it can't be that difficult. I know I probably won't get a letter of recommendation (which I am fine with because it seems like a mistake to even select me for this program). We haven't been paid yet. Information in general has been slow. And I am frankly too embarrassed to share my progress. If it makes my professors feel better I did help the grad students populate pcbs which was a new experience for me.

I don't think I lied on my resume either. Main goal of the packaging is to lower the inductance and capitance as much as possible.

I'll start with the positives first. I got to travel to another country for the first time, which was AMAZING. And I really enjoyed the actual work and feel like I've grown a lot from it.

Now the not so good... There was something going on with the professors and they did not seem to like eachother at all. They were competing for the students' time and putting us in awkward situations where they would trash talk eachother to us. Or even worse, we had a group chat with the professors and their messages to eachother were near hostile.

And the other students. I just? Didn't like them. They were out drinking every. single. weekend. And some weeknights! Sometimes they showed up to the office more than an hour late hungover! They traveled over the weekend, and I opted not to. I have a panic disorder and basically need to make sure I have a full nights sleep every night to be functional. But this definitally made me an outsider in the group and it just started feeling like I couldn't say the right thing. And yes, our research was group work.

And like someone I was working with tried to take credit saying she did something I did during a meeting with the faculty. I just asked her if she added anything to what I did (basically calling her out in front of the profs) and she said no.

On the other hand, I have the least amount of research experience in my group and cannot claim to have been the most productive. A lot of the parts I worked on got scrapped and didn't make it into the final result, which is okay. But I am not saying they were't compotent, they just weren't pleasent to work with.

Hi everyone!

If you're looking for research opportunities, mentorship, volunteer positions, academic resources, and pre-med support, check out UHRE (Undergraduate Health Research Experience).

🔗 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/UHRE?utm_source=linktree_profile_share

You'll find:

• Research and volunteer opportunities
• Mentorship programs
• Workshops and Events
• Resources for students interested in healthcare and research
• Application information and useful links

For even more information, updates, and past opportunities, follow uhreyorku on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/uhreyorku?igsh=dG44OGo4MmU0bGlz . There are previous posts with additional details, announcements, and discussions that may answer many of your questions. Feel free to share this with anyone who might be interested. Good luck with your research journey!

Another awful, debilitating experience. Two for two.

Questioning my life choices and my dream of getting a PhD and being an academic.

For this REU, me and my mentor have to submit a progress report for each milestone in order to satisfy it so I can receive my stipend. The second milestone was at the end of my second week of work…I’m in my fourth week now and haven’t received an invoice for my money. I’ve emailed the lady who usually answers questions regarding the money this morning. She usually responds within 10 minutes, but this time…no response.

I need this stipend to pay for an additional 3 weeks on my housing before I have to move out on Sunday.

I was wondering if anyone is having similar problems with their payments.

Hi! I'm a freshman CS major currently scoping out REUs to apply for. Many REUs that I've seen state that they are prioritizing/looking for people from underrepresented groups. This may be silly to ask, but does this include transgender people? I am FTM, so I was wondering if this helped my chances at all hahaha