Developing ecologists: a professional development seminar for summer undergraduate researchers

Background/Question/Methods

Many research universities and predominantly undergraduate institutions (PUIs)  have active summer research programs for undergraduates. These programs often focus on providing an authentic mentored research experience. While this experience is critical, summer research programs also offer an opportunity to introduce undergraduates to the professional cultures and practices of science. Greater familiarity with these aspects of a career in science may help students make informed decisions about career options, particularly those who have less exposure to the field. For these reasons, we developed a professional development seminar for undergraduate researchers. We ran this seminar for three years at Florida State University, focusing on researchers in ecology and evolution. Although several other institutions (particularly REU sites) run such seminars, detailed information about the content of seminars is not readily available. We present an overview of our series as well as details about two specific seminar topics: science and the media, and getting into/succeeding in graduate school.

Results/Conclusions

Our seminar met weekly, with 5-20 students attending each session. Topics varied from year to year, but included science and the media (communicating science to the public), scientific ethics, applying to graduate school, a career panel (focused on careers outside of academia), peer review, a CV/resume workshop, and effective written and oral presentations. The career panel was particularly well attended (by graduate students and post-docs as well), and the CV/resume workshop was particularly appreciated by the undergraduates. For the science and the media session, we developed a structured set of activities. Students first discussed the importance of communicating science with the public. We next analyzed an original paper and the accompanying New York Times article to see how traditional media translates scientific results. We also watched an interview with a scientist on the Colbert Report, analyzing the interviewee’s performance. Finally, we had students develop their own 1-minute elevator talk about their summer research. For the graduate school session, we had graduate students and faculty give short presentations on strategies for a successful application and graduate school career. Because graduate school can be mysterious, especially for PUI students, these presentations were critically important.