Summer Research Advice needed

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lena20

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Do MSTPs care about what kind of research projects you take part in? I have a chance to do summer research at my school (not a top tier school) involving molecular biology with one of my professors who is a plant geneticist, but am wondering if it would be better to find a summer research program elsewhere which is more medically oriented. Does it really matter?

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gwang is absolutely right.

The kind of research you are doing is virtually completely irrelevant. The adcoms are not looking for people that know a specific set of lab techniques, which is what you presumably learn doing a specific kind of research.
Rather they are looking to evaluate your research potential. They are interested in finding individuals that have demonstrated the creativity and analytical skills that are the basis of doing science. Whether you're doing plant biochemistry, quantum physics or confocal imaging of neurons, you are using the same part of your brain, and how you approach any set of particular problems is what will determnine your potential as a scientist.
Having said this, don't freak out thinking that you have to suddenly be an independent reseacher.
Rather, what this means is that you should choose a project that will interest you sufficiently to get truly involved. Personally, I feel there is nothing more important than the mentor - it's how I chose my undergraduate projects, and how I now picked a lab to join for my PhD. What you want is a good teacher - someone who is willing to let you learn and guide you through the process of doing research - not just preforming experiments. If you feel this plant geneticist guy is interested in having you in his lab, and he would let you get involved with the creative side of things, not just as a lab tech, then, by all means, do it.
Basically, the adcoms will want to see that you truly understood your project, including why certain experiments were done, why you interpreted the results the way you did, and how things were handled when they didn't work.
 
Another tidbit of advice:

If you have no experience doing research in a medical enviromnment, it can come in handy, for your own sake and for the adcom's sake, to get some experience in a hospital/medical research environment. This doesnt mean clinical, but a place where some faculty may have clinical background, or other people are doing clinical research, or even have the 'insanity' of a medical campus. Summers are a great chance fot his.

You need to convince yourself (and then the adcom) that you know what you are getting yourself into, since you will be doing research in a medical environment for the rest of your life....

As for the work itself, go for whats cool and makes you interested. Look outside your school only if there is a good program and you want to get around the country a bit... Don't accept a vastly inferior project simply because its far away or quasi clinical...
 
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