High School Internships: Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is there a cost to be an intern? What is the salary?

This program is a volunteer program. There is no charge to the high school intern, nor is there a salary for the intern.

2. Can I apply if I live outside of the San Francisco Bay Area?

This program is for local high school students only. It is not a residential program.   Our interns live at home and travel to campus each day. We rarely, if ever, accept non-local students even if they have place to stay in the area.

3. How do I apply?

Each year, a new application is released in February. The application is due at the end of March. We do not accept late applications.

For your GPA, you should include your unweighted, normal GPA.

Letters of recommendation can be sent with the application or they can be sent independently. Let the person who is writing the recommendation decide how to send the letter. Mail is preferred to email or fax.

When asking for the letter of recommendation, here are some questions for your teacher to answer:

Does s/he understand science? Does sh/e follow instructions? Does s/he work well with other students? Does s/he ask good questions? Does s/he self-motivation about succeeding in science/math? What makes this student stand out? Is s/he independent? Is s/he creative? How does s/he show you that s/he is excited/interested in science or technicology? Does s/he work well with others? What makes you think that s/he will succeed in a summer internship in Earth sciences?

4. What are my chances of being accepted?

Each year we receive 40-60 applications for about 15 positions.

5. When do I find out if I got in? When does the program begin?

March 20: Applications Due
May 1 or sooner: notification of acceptance
June 15: Orientation: Interns can begin before or after this date, depending on their last day of school, vacation plans or other commitments.
August 10: the last week of the internship program.

6. How do I get to campus each day?

Many interns are driven by their parents. Others ride their bikes, take the train or take the bus. Parking on campus is expensive. If you are accepted and transportation may be an issue, talk to Jenny before the program begins.

7. What do interns actually do?

Each internship position is different. Interns are assigned to a mentor who will guide them through the summer. The mentors are graduate students, laboratory managers, post-doctoral fellows, and professors. The interns work about 20 hours per week with a set schedule that they determine with their mentor.

Interns work with one research group, and often on just one project. Interns learn that scientific research takes a long time, with many steps and some of the work is only on a computer while other research projects are only in the field. Most interns do not have the opportunity to do their own research project since they are learning and helping others.

Once a week we have talks, lab tours, and field trips as a group. This is a time that interns get to learn about the broad field of Earth science and get to know one another.

Interns work during the week, Monday through Friday, and sometimes on the weekends. Each inten sets up a semi-regular schedule with their mentor. An example schedule is Monday 10-4, Wednesday 10-4 and Thursday 1-4.

Here are a few quotes from the 2006 interns about what they learned and did.

• I learned how to operate different types of machines, how to interpret data, and more about the nature of viruses and bacteria.
• I learned how to operate mineral separation machines, how to effectively use ArcGIS to digitize maps, and gained knowledge about the San Andreas fault and the Basin and Range Province, among many other things.
• The worst thing I had to do was to wash all the glassware. It was a never-ending cycle of washing/rinsing. However, washing glassware was a good time to reflect on what I did well and what I could improve on for the experiments.
• I discovered NOAA Air Resources Laboratory Website which can be rally helpful but of which i have never heard before.
• I learned a lot of different laboratory procedures such as how to work in the glove bag, how to autoclave something, how to standardize the pH probe, how to measure the airflow of something, how to pour agar plates, how to stain bacteria, and much more. I also learned how to make different iron oxides and how to prepare samples for the X-Ray Diffraction machine and the Scanning Electron Microscope.
• I thought the Wednesday talks were very fun and interesting. The first few were a little difficult for me to follow, but it was still great to learn a little bit more about different areas of Earth Sciences and have the opportunity to hear an in-depth presentation about something new and exciting. I really enjoyed the last two Wednesday talks - seeing the SHRIMP machine was interesting and holding a mammoth tooth was definitely a highlight of my summer.