Has anyone heard of this grant, or done it before?
http://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/list_result.cfm?unitid=5054 You go to a school in the US and they hook you up with a mentor (for undergrads only
), you work on research and such. I am thinking of applying to it, just wondering if any of you grad students have done it before
I did an REU in the boonies of Oklahoma at Northeastern State U (I'm a lifelong New Englander, so it was a bit of a fun culture shock). I think each school is different, so your experience will probably depend on the faculty, level of organization of the program, etc. I had a really fun time at mine but it was almost more like 'camp' than research. I think this was because it was the first year of the program, so it was quite disorganized. I recall taking some ethics workshops (interesting) and a really basic stats class (horrible) in addition to my haphazard research project, where we spent a large portion of the time dealing with IRB. In the end, though, I definitely learned quite a bit and managed to put together a poster.
I think that many of the programs have been around longer and you would be even more likely to get more out of it. I definitely enjoyed mine and I'm even talking about it in my personal statement as a 'formative experience'. So, yeah, go for it!
