Helpful Tips for Your Successful Summer Research Job

1stGenYale's Summer Bulldogs program held webinars in 2020 and 2021 which offer tips about summer research internships. While we could not answer all the questions in our webinars' one-hour time limit's, we want to share information which current students, last year's interns, faculty, and alumni thought were important for you to know.

Working with the Faculty Member or Sponsor:

• Establish clear communication from the first meeting. Include discussion of the project from its beginning to end. Understand what is due, when, in what form (essay, excel spreadsheet, PowerPoint, etc.), and how best delivered (phone call, video teleconference, email, upload, etc.). Ask what is to follow - next steps. How to request feedback/clarification.

• Set up required hours, deadlines, work days, vacation or time off, etc. in advance. No surprises -- give notice with plenty of time for days off or vacation during the summer.

• Need to establish timelines for milestones and deliverables - keep yourself accountable.

• Meet weekly with your faculty member or sponsor to check in, ask questions, and be comfortable in your work.

• Discuss how and when to ask questions – in team meetings or individually. Ask questions in your weekly session and another other time during the week. They want to hear from you.

• Find out whether there is another member of the staff you can go to with routine questions. In addition, find out whether there is someone in the department who can look at your work before you submit it to the professor for review.

• How to prepare for team meetings – read agendas.

• If you are unclear about how others (faculty, grad students, etc.) fit into the workflow, ask about their role and your interaction with the work team.

• Get to know other members of the team, including graduate students, faculty, and other interns. Build relationships with them. You may work together well and have the opportunity to work with them in the future.

• Search and discover articles published by your faculty member or sponsor to have a full understanding of their work. They will be impressed that you have explored their published work and have an interest in discussing it with them.

Managing Project Work:

• Effective time management - Understand the assignment and ask questions until it is clear to you. Schedule your time for the week, including any deadlines and building in personal time. Take breaks throughout the day.

• Understand how a project that has "real-world" consequences is different from modeling.

• Work in a pandemic is isolating and limits opportunities for those in a community to help each other out and benefit from each other's strength or knowledge. Figure out ways to connect with others throughout your time.

Developing Personal Professional Management:

• Document what you are doing at the time so you can easily update your resume afterward. For instance, make a note of the job description (you can turn it into bullet points for your resume), keep track of each accomplishment or problem solved (even if it seems small), and save any emails or messages regarding your tasks or your professor’s comments on them.

• Track your hours so you can refer back to them, if needed.

• Save all emails received and sent related to work with your faculty member or sponsor.

• If you are on a team with other students, set up a GroupMe or other way to communicate among yourselves — to ask questions, solve problems, check in on each other’s progress, etc.

Building Peer Support:

• Set up a Google, Team, or Slack group with your fellow students across projects to share questions, concerns, and to support each other during your summer experience.

• Ask a peer to review your drafts, if permitted.

• Talk with other Yale College students who did summer research last year -- often they can give you the best advice!

Creating Work-Life Balance:

• Think about what kind of work-life balance is important to you. Then, plan for it.

• Set some goals for yourself: What do you hope to get from the experience?

• Take breaks every hour just to clear your head and be fresh.

• Do something for yourself every day.

• Be sure to see friends and family on a regular basis.

• Take care of yourself with healthy eating, regular exercise, time off for yourself, and mindfulness.

Learning Lessons Along the Way:

• Think about what next steps might look like for you - future research, another internship next summer, continued work during the school year, etc.

• Explore how your summer experience will help you plan your future course and career paths.

• Add your summer research project to your resume, including quantitative and qualitative data.

• After your internship, ask if your professor or sponsor would be willing to write you a recommendation when your project ends (best now so it will be fresh in their mind).

• Be bold, but not reckless. Avoid "woulda, coulda, shoulda" regrets and do the things now that in hindsight, you would have, could have or should have done during this internship.

• You may find out that maybe this is not the kind of work or area of interest that you want to pursue. That is perfectly ok to find out. Do not have bad feelings about it.