The following links are meant to help you know what steps you can take before and after students ask if they can research in your lab. In order to optimize the working relationship between you and your research assistants, please check out the information on the process for capturing the attention of more students, what groups of students you may have working in your lab, and how to get students started in the lab. Besides providing tips about where students can publish and present their research, there is commentary regarding what it means to be an undergraduate researcher at Caltech.
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Advertising to undergraduates
In order to recruit undergraduates, you can:
Post information about available projects on the SURF website
Contact the Student-Faculty Programs Office for more information. Check out example Announcements of Opportunity for inspiration. Also, this is a way to get non-Caltech students in your lab.Present your research in a seminar course
Not only will this make students more aware of the interesting work you do, you can announce that you would like more students in your lab so they will be even more inclined to contact you. Please ask your Department Coordinator for more information about being included in a seminar class.Teach an undergraduate-level course
The more interesting your lectures are, the more students will ask to work with you. Please see Teaching Tips for advice on how to be a more effective teacher.Collaborating with undergraduates
Students may want to:
Conduct a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) project
This requires that they devise a project idea with you, write a research proposal, work in the lab for 10 weeks of research in the summer, write a paper summarizing their findings, and present their research at a seminar day. Many students will choose this option since workload during the school year is demanding. Please visit Student-Faculty Programs (SFP) for more information on this and other exciting summer research options. If more students contact you for a given project than you can feasibly maintain, please let the students know right away so they can keep other options available.
Oftentimes, faculty assign their SURF students to a graduate student or postdoc co-mentor, who can train the students and answer their questions on a more daily basis. The SFP office organizes a Co-mentor Advisory Council that co-mentors are invited to join before summer begins. The council even provides training and social activity opportunities for co-mentors who do not join.
Research for academic credit
This option is for research conducted during the school year, and your department should have a general research course students can sign up for. They can work with you to determine how many units of research is reasonable. Research during the school year is an excellent way for students to prepare for their summer project (during third term) or to finish work from the summer (during first term). Please contact your department coordinator, or consult the Caltech Catalog for more information about the course your option offers.
Research for pay during the academic year
If your lab has the money, you can offer your students the option to work for money, instead of academic credit. This option is good for students who do not need the additional academic units. However, students are not allowed to receive both pay and academic credit. If students have work study, they can get paid for working in your lab without costing you as much money. Please contact the Financial Aid Office for more information about this option. On-campus and work study jobs can be posted at the Career Development Center.
Research volunteers*
Other research assistants you may want to work with:
Non-Caltech undergraduates
Often, the easiest way to work with non-Caltech students is through the summer research programs. Please visit the Student-Faculty Programs for more information on the formal summer programs available to non-Caltech students. If you want to work with non-Caltech students outside of the summer research programs, please talk to other faculty members in your department or contact the Student-Faculty Programs Office.Visiting academics
Please talk to other faculty members in your department for more information.Other outside volunteers
For information about the policy on volunteers, please contact General Counsel or Dlorah Gonzales, from Human Resources.* Special note on volunteers: You cannot have students volunteering for work that would otherwise merit pay. For example, when international students come to do research at Caltech because their home university mandates they do research in another country, they are not considered volunteers. While internationals may be willing to work for free, the American labor law does not look kindly on this unless the job is genuinely a volunteer opportunity.
Safety
All students working in your lab are required to go through a lab safety course/orientation.
- Summer researchers, who are organized through the Student-Faculty Programs (SFP) Office, will be required to attend the Laboratory Safety Orientation Meeting and submit a safety checklist to SFP within their first week of starting work on campus.
- Students and volunteers working during the school year need to have safety training, which is either organized through the Safety Office or your lab safety officer. There are numerous Lab Safety Training Courses; the basic recommended course is Lab Safety Orientation.
Bringing Student Research to Life
There are ways that you can encourage your students to make their research more worthwhile for them and for the scientific community through:
Publications
About 20% of students going through the SFP summer research experience publish their work in refereed literature as a co-author, and some students' main goal is to produce publishable research. Consider encouraging students who obtain quality data to submit their research for publication in a science journal related to their field of study or to the Caltech Undergraduate Research Journal (CURJ).Research Conferences
Another way for students to share their work is through presenting at conferences. For example, you can bring your students along to professional meetings, such as the American Chemical Society, so they can give a poster talk. A local conference is the Southern California Conference on Undergraduate Research (SCCUR), which the SFP Office supports by funding registration and providing transportation.Who is in charge during these collaborative efforts? Undergraduate Researcher v. Assistant
Consider that the research experience is a collaboration between you and your students/volunteers. An important mission of Caltech's undergraduate research programs is to give undergraduates a chance at practicing, and learning what it means to have intellectual ownership over a project. This means they should have some independence to make decisions about the direction of the project in addition to receiving guidance from you and their co-mentor (if a co-mentor is necessary). Individual students will approach their research experience with a variety of expectations, and you should discuss those expectations regularly with your students. The time that you take to support them will motivate students/volunteers and will keep you updated on the progress of their work.