Life as GREaT GradS
a summer of research and fun
by Unnati Akhouri
For most of us, the past two years have been challenging, trying to find the balance between work and life while keeping our mental well-being in check. Amidst all this, starting out a new chapter of our lives is even more intimidating. A group that is particularly affected are incoming graduate students who have to undergo the transition, of leaving the comfort of friends, a network and possibly a strong family structure nearby to move to a new place, all under the spell of a global pandemic. Tiffany Mathews, Program Co-Director for Education & Outreach with the Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (MRSEC), who is often thinking of ways to enhance the life and experience of students, saw this as an opportunity to plan an innovative program that would help the incoming graduate students with their dreaded transition.
And that is when the idea of GREaT Grads sparked. While summer funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) is often associated with undergrads, Mathews and her team at MRSEC worked hard on the innovative proposal and bagged NSF funding for running a research program for incoming Grad Students here at Penn State.
In her own words, Mathews describes, “GREaT GradS (Graduate Research Experience & Transitioning to Grad School) was a program was to provide grad students a transition in a low stakes environment with no teaching or classes, but to focus on research and giving them an opportunity to invest in themselves as well as navigating Penn State and the resources that are available to grad students.”
For the pilot program, 5 incoming students from the physics and chemistry department were selected. The program was six-weeks long and focused around obtaining hands-on research experience, meeting people in the department and learning more about the department’s culture and requirements as an incoming grad student. Besides this, the students were also offered career and professional development workshops and seminars familiarizing them with Penn State culture and resources twice a week. Sharing her experience, a physics GREaT grad, Margaret Hopkins Loughlin says, “ As part of the GREaT GradS program, I started doing research and participated in various professional development activities.”
The program also involved two senior graduate student mentors, to act as a support system within the department for the participating students. Being current graduate students and having spent time at PSU themselves, they could provide unique insight to the participating students.
Besides the head start in research, the program also provided them with an opportunity to explore State College in all its glory under the sun. During the course of the program, group outings like ice-cream breaks and garden lunches were planned which gave the students a chance to know their peers as well as their mentors a little better. When asked about the social and community building aspect of the program, Margaret commented, “I particularly appreciated the opportunities this program provided to meet people in and out of the physics program, become familiar with the campus and various programs and resources offered by the university.”
Summarizing her experience, a GREaT grad, Lauren Monique Duenas who joins PSU from California says, “When I made the decision to study at Penn State, I traveled across the country without knowing anyone. Being part of the Great Grad program enabled me to network with people in and outside my department, give me a head start to beginning my graduate life and rotate in my lab of interest.”
The program concluded a couple of weeks before the end of summer providing the students some buffer space. As her feedback, Lauren shares, “ Being a Great Grad helped me smoothly transition into the chemistry graduate program and I feel very grateful to have participated. ”
Looking back at the program, Mathews says she is reminded of her days in graduate school, about 20 years ago, at PSU, feeling overwhelmed with all the different roles one has to take on as a graduate student. On a personal note she share, “My motivation was to offer young students an opportunity to acclimate, ask questions, and give them purpose on why they are here – what do they want to do after they earn their Ph.D.” Seeing the feedback from the students, she takes pride in having seen the program end on a success as the students start their journey this semester, with a border horizon than when they entered the campus.
But there is no rest for the creative! Mathews already has plans to expand the program and work with more departments in the Sciences to offer this opportunity next year. She already has milestone meetings planned with this year’s cohort and mentor team, peppered along the coming months, to touch base on how the program helped, collect feedback, and to sustain this support system that the students and mentors have created over summer.
Such programs, bridging the gap between undergrad and grad life, being a student to a researcher, can be truly helpful to our academic system. One hopes such programs keep evolving with feedback and continue to improve the life of students in academia.