The UTRA program at Brown is a way for students to be financially supported for research during the semester or the summer while working in a lab.
Originally, my plan for this entry was to write about the UTRA program, and tell students about its strengths and weaknesses.
OK. Short version - UTRAs are great for students to gain entry into a lab. Professors post projects. Students apply to work on those projects. If you're selected, you work on the program for a semester or a summer and you can gain valuable experience. It's a good way to get into a lab. The bad news is that the funds over the summer might not be enough to live off of without supplementing it with another job (which is a big change to the program).
But that's not really the point I want to make. I want to make another point, which exposes a flaw in the UTRA program. What students can (and often) do with UTRAs is jump from working in one lab to another. Three or even more times.
And in some ways, that's OK. Sometimes, a student will apply to work in a lab, and once they get there, they decide they don't like it. It's perfectly OK to not like the research that a lab is doing. I don't like a lot of the research that my colleagues do - I wouldn't want to do that kind of work. It's OK. It really is.
What's not OK is an idea that I keep hearing, which is that it is in the student's best interest to jump around and work in a few labs. The UTRA program is perfect for this, because a student can win a UTRA to work with one professor, and then win another one to work for a different professor (and rinse and repeat). I have now met a few students who have worked in three or more different labs, each for a semester or so. They have long resumes and it looks like they have a lot of research experience.
Sounds good, right? NO. This is a TERRIBLE idea. Please don't do this.
The best way to get into a Ph.D. program (or any advanced study) is to engage in sustained research, which means staying in a single lab and accomplishing something - authorship on a paper, strong letter of recommendation from the PI, an honors thesis or independent project that serves as the writing statement for an application. The best case scenario is that you start in a lab as a sophomore and its engaging, and you just stay there. Maybe you do a thesis. Maybe you are part of a project that leads to a paper. Or maybe you just get a lot of experience. Work for years (plural) and you are in really good shape.
And even if you don't want to apply for a Ph.D. and just want a job, well, employers like consistency. This is about quality, not quantity. There's a risk when a student works in 3+ labs for a semester each: the student is flaky or even worse, problematic, because it can mean they weren't retained.
Again, please don't misunderstand. If you join a lab, and don't like it, it's fine to leave. If you still want to do research, and want to try another lab, that's great. It's OK to do that. What's not OK is to just try to get in to lots of labs for a semester without making a contribution to any one of them, or to know that you're only going to stay there for a semester. Research (and research experience) is about contributing new knowledge to the world. That doesn't happen in a short time period.
And I'll end with my challenge to the UTRA program - what's next? UTRAs are great for getting students into labs, but what happens once they are in? The support for students after they get into a lab is not as clear because independent studies have limits and requirements, particularly for sophomores and juniors.
(btw, we - your faculty - are going to try to work on this - but things move slowly)