Bringing Together Professionals and Undergraduate Students in a Virtual Environment

Abstract:

As the Covid-19 situation continues, the virus especially isolates new, young scientists. During our REU program this summer, we tried to offer interactive communications between scientists, professionals, and students. We hope our students’ experiences are not limited to just lectures and communication with program coordinators and their science mentors. We hope the program can deepen their insight into solar and related science fields, their future education, and career choices. We use weekly feedback and Slack channel chats to learn about students’ interests and who they would like to talk with. Some of these meetings are within our mandatory weekly professional development programs. Others are based on student interests and the schedules of the professionals. These meetings include scientist coffee time and chats with previous REU students. The topics include specific science fields, graduate school life, talking with graduate admission officers, popular science, study abroad, tips from former REU students, and working at science-related jobs. Most of these meetings are highly interactive.

Even though we miss some in-person meeting fun, we still find some advantages in the online environment. For example, we can invite people from all over the world to join our conversations. We are also able to record the talks and stream them on youtube with private links. The students who are not able to attend or would like to review can access them later.