• Practice your interview with the new SDN AI Interview Coach. Choose a school, answer by voice or typing, and receive a personalized feedback report. Available now to all SDN members. Try the AI Interview Coach.

Nsf reu

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
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! 🙂