Author: Albert Christian Soewongsono
Having been quite successful with previous webinar series with Tom and Albert from London, Kelas Daring IELTS NTT hosted another webinar series taking place on its Facebook page on this Saturday. This time the series was presented by Rebecca Latto, currently a visiting research student at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) at the University of Tasmania. Rebecca is a science graduate from the Columbia University in the New York City, majoring in Applied Physics. In the past Rebecca worked with NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies as a student research assistant during her study years. Upon graduation Rebecca got a research position at Simon Fraser University in Canada before moving to Hobart and conducting research in Glacier Physics at IMAS. Outside academia, Rebecca also enjoyed herself in some voluntary activities where she got involved with the Skyscraper Museum in the New York City as a project intern, and currently helping Wilderness Society of Tasmania at Salamanca market by promoting active campaigns to protect local forests and wildlife. If you missed the live talk and would like to watch Rebecca’s presentation, the video can be accessed on our Facebook page via this link: Rebecca’s Recorded Presentation.
After her brief and concise introduction about herself, Rebecca talked about valuable tips for getting research internships in which she called it as “Getting Research 101”. It was divided into 3 separate sections:
Building your personal research “brand”
Knowing where to look
and Networking.
Let’s begin with the first, which is building your personal research brand. There were some different techniques Rebecca mentioned on how to brand yourself. The first one is to have a LinkedIn account because you can put your academic and research career experience there. Another option is ResearchGate to build your personal research brand. The next thing which is also not less important is your resume or CV (Becca’s resume attached here for your example). In your resume, you can list things such as your education background, research interest, research and work experience, publications, coursework you have taken, and other relevant skills, including your social works. Moving on to the next section – Knowing where to look, Rebecca highlighted some sources where you can get more information about research opportunities. From her experience, you can start your search by looking at your local universities. This includes, find seminar schedules online, meet with professors, browse university website and ask the academic staffs there. The next step is to look at external sources on the internet. Rebecca mentioned about https://pathwaystoscience.org/, a website where you can search information about research opportunities based on your discipline. The other option is you can directly contact the academic staff at a university you are looking, to ask about current available projects for student to apply. It is important to also include your resume and academic transcripts on your email. The last but not the least is to be included on email listservs, email listservs are a method of communicating with a group of people via email. By doing this you will get regular information about opportunities that are currently opened.
Let’s proceed to the last one, that is about networking! According to Rebecca, networking means talking to people who can help you do what you want to do. This includes emailing professors/scientists who are doing the stuffs you want to do or talk to research students around. Also like always, having balance is important, which means you should also do some activities outside of research, such as getting involved in clubs, doing your hobbies or community service.
We hope you are still feeling engaged reading this article until this stage, because we still have the Q&A session that run for about 30 minutes and we had quite some number of questions asked by our viewers. Some of the questions and answers are highlighted below:
Hi Becca. I am concerning about environmental and /or ecology. Could you tell me about the chance to get research internship?
According to Rebecca, you should do a lot of searching through available opportunities. Like she said on her presentation, the first step is to look at your local universities, but you can also make use of some research communities like ResearchGate to find information and also reach out directly to the scientists by emailing them.
Would you share with us any tips and tricks in writing essay application form for research internship?
Becca said you should include a section there on why the research you want to do is important and methodology you want to apply, but in general you need to do a research first on what specific format the institution requires.
My bachelor’s degree in Physics education, but I’m interested to apply master’s in engineering for renewable energy. Am I eligible to apply this program?
Yes! Becca started by specifying different types of master’s degree, such as masters by research where you are just doing research and need a strong background in research as part of the application requirement, and masters by coursework where the part of your degree also includes attending classes. But you should check the university requirements for this, because each university have different requirements. You can also always email the academic staffs there if you are not sure about your eligibility.
People are often worried about the living cost before even applying for a research position, especially if it’s in different country. In general, do they have scholarships to offer for doing research?
They can have scholarships to support you during doing research, but they may not, so you should double check with the person you will be working with to make sure that there are some grants available to support with your living cost, especially if it’s overseas. Rebecca told about her past experiences working with NASA and the Simon Fraser university in Canada, they had some grants, so she was also getting paid at the time when conducting research.
Have you ever had difficulty in completing your study and how do you deal with that?
Yes, it is very normal, Becca shared that she also had doubts in the past to decide which area she should major. Talking to you colleagues and explaining your difficulties to the professor in the class you are enrolled in are always a good thing to do in order to keep up with the work.
You mentioned earlier doing some works with NASA when still in High School. But, for most people it is difficult to take the first step especially when you are still at young age, what encouraged you at the time to seek for the info and apply for one?
At the time when she applied to work with NASA, it was because she liked to watch “Doctor Who”, an American sci-fi tv series and had dream to go to space and so she just tried to search for opportunists to be involved with NASA.
Could you share with us how long you waited for the acceptance letter for NASA internship? How was the NASA internship? Could you tell us more about it?
Typically, you applied in around November towards January, and heard back around June and July. So, basically around 5 months waiting. It was great internship experience to her, since she was also able to develop new skills such as MATLAB and met a lot of people. Basically, it was a great exposure.
Any personal tips when emailing professors regarding research position? like what kind of information we must include on the email?
According to Rebecca, it is good to always include your resume and quickly say on the email why they need to consider you and tell them about your interest. If you need more, you can ask Rebecca through her email address at: RL2797@columbia.edu.
I graduated in physics education, but I am keen on doing experiment. I want to pursue my master that more focus on research. In what kind of major should I apply?
Rebecca recommended to look at research-based major where you can conduct a lot of experiments. But, as usual, just email the academic staffs and explain your situation, and they will know what works best for your case.
Do they usually require prior research experience?
Sometimes they do, but it’s more like if you have that experience, then it will be more useful than none.
Maybe talk about IMAS a bit before closing it?
So, IMAS stands for Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies in Tasmania. People often say Tasmania is like a gateway to Antarctica, since it is very close from here. Rebecca works there twice a week, and they are mostly doing about oceanography and ecology related works, and most importantly there are a lot of funding go to this institution.
So, that is all everyone for the summary of today’s webinar session with Rebecca. We all hope that you learned something new from here, and still engaged on what we have been planning. See you guys in our next webinar session, we hope there will be more interactions from you. As said earlier, Rebecca’s presentation is attached below.
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