Student services in colleges and universities are proffer to excel students all the way through their higher education course. Plethora of information are there presented involve building their aspirations and in making decisions, above all, when every summer vacation comes. Many students used to find meaningful activities during this period rather than just making their summer days no-sense at all.
A certain university in Texas on their student services news, a sophomore student named Andre who’s taken up Biological Science major at this institution usually spent his summer vacation building potato launchers and home-made rockets together with his friends is now embarking a position as a summer research scholar in one of the universities located in Tennessee to thrust his passion in Science.
Andre, during his summer research program spent 8 weeks reproducing genome evolution and protein translation. He was one of the selected students in Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) in National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS). The summer research program duration is until Aug. 3, in which 18 students only including him are chosen amongst 100 students all over the country in Tennessee.
Since Andre’s career goal is to pursue doctorate and a medical degree, then this summer program becomes his constructive way to make it along the way towards his success. It is actually more than taking career tests, for he is determined and willing to attain remarkable success through this course.
“This has been a great experience for me,” Perez said. “It helps me to apply the knowledge I get through lectures. By using what I learn, I understand it even more,” he said.
Michael Gilchrist, Ph.D., in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and an associate professor in the university said that, summer programs prepare undergraduates to toil on advanced, practical research such as the summer experience provided by the institute.
With the increasing number of challenges and problems come to sight in the modern world, this said summer research program aim to help students understand the scientific knowledge for those who love science. They allocate students to progress into producers of knowledge from being consumers of knowledge. In the course of this program, students will learn to recognize the boundaries and caveats that stick on with this form of research; as well as to help spot potential solutions since the current world in-needs of good scientists to face the scientific problems.
So, like Andre, he has excelled his passion in Science through summer research program he attended, while he used to simply building potato launcher and home-made rockets before.