University of Connecticut | |
Undergraduate Opportunities for Summer Internships in Materials Science There are a wide variety of summer internships available to undergraduate students nationwide. These include positions at universities as well as national laboratories such as NIST, NASA sites, and Dept. of Energy Facilities. General Details: In addition to the summer salary, housing and transportation to/from the site are generally paid for. This is not usually a job where one can earn a great deal of money, however you will be able to save some spending money for the coming year and the experience is priceless. At most sites, there will be several students from the same discipline (10 or more), usually offered housing together to facilitate group activities, cooking, transportation, etc. As there are similar programs for most other scientific and engineering disciplines, many students from other departments may also be clustered together for housing as well as outside activities, providing a collegiate atmosphere and a peer group. These programs are often structured to encourage diversity, including race, ethnicity, and gender, but somewhat uniquely they also encourage a diversity of backgrounds and homes for the participants. In fact, the programs usually strive to bring in students from far away, so your chances when applying to a program in Connecticut or Massachusetts, for example, may not be as strong as with an application somewhere further from home. As you might imagine, certain universities or labs are more highly sought after than others, so unless your gpa is stellar don’t bother applying for the university of Hawaii program… The positions are certainly competitive, so be sure to do a good job with your resume and have strong letters of recommendation if you plan to apply. At least one character reference beyond academic references is advisable—you want to stand out among the competition, and sometimes this is done best by hearing about how you won the piggly wiggly grocery bag stuffing competition as opposed to yet another letter extolling your excellent homework submissions. Finally, the application process is generally rolling, so there is a chance you may still be able to apply even after the deadline (contact the program administrator to be sure). Opportunities Various Universities: (deadlines vary by school, generally Jan-Feb) http://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/list_result.cfm?unitid=5052 Sites: Over 90 Opportunities nationwide. See website for details. National Institute of Standards and Technology (Feb 17) Sites: NIST Gaithersburg, Gaithersburg, MD (25 miles N of Washington DC) NIST Boulder, Boulder, CO NASA (January 23) Sites: Johnson Space Center (JSC), Houston, Texas Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida Langley Research Center (LaRC), Hampton, Virginia Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), Huntsville, Alabama White Sands Test Facility (WSTF), New Mexico Dept. of Energy (February 1) Sites: Ames Laboratory, Ames, Iowa Argonne National Laboratory, 25 miles southwest of Chicago's Loop. Brookhaven National Laboratory, Long Island, NY. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, 30 miles west of Chicago's loop Idaho National Laboratory, southeastern Idaho Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, overlooking the San Francisco Bay. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, 45 miles East of San Francisco. Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico National Energy Technology Laboratory, Albany, Ore., Morgantown, W.Va., and Pittsburgh, Pa National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colo Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 25 miles from Knoxville, TN Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Southeastern Washington state Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford, CA Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Newport News, Virginia DOE Headquarters - Naval Reactors Internship, Germantown, MD (30 miles North of Washington DC)
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