2008 Woodie Awards
More Students Call the Lab Home, Even During the Summer
Jonathan Hefter
Issue date: 10/8/07 Section: Science & Technology
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While the summer is often a time for rest and relaxation, many undergraduates are becoming more involved in broadening their academic experience through summer internships. Both on the Wilf Campus and beyond, many members of undergraduate classes in YU dedicated their summers to basic scienctific research.
Time during the semester is so limited due to the double curriculum, that working during the summer provides these precious research opportunities. Undergraduate students across America often spend significant time involved in research laboratories, gaining teamwork skills and exposure to real-time scientific development. These experiences are becoming standard for pre-health applicants in an evermore competitive application process.
For the past three summers, fifth ear senior and physics major Dovid Skversky (YC '08), who has plans for graduate school next year, has been working research labs. Currently working with Dr. Fredy Zypman, assistant professor of Physics on the Wilf Campus, Skversky spent this past summer researching how electrons act in a parabolic well made up of a finite chain of atoms.
The work over the summer, Skversky explained, will hopefully become the initial stages of an honors thesis which he will be writing at the end of this academic year. Joining a lab on campus for a summer definitely has its advantages, including working with familiar faculty and students as well as the option of continuing into the school year. Nevertheless, in previous years, Skversky chose to intern in two off campus labs. He first worked at the Univerisity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 2005, then at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, in 2006, each summer working on a different project within those universities' respective physics departments.
"I was drawn to these institutions by the wide range of research opportunities available, as well as the extensive and well developed laboratories in almost any area of interest. It was great to have at least ten graduate students close by all the time to answer my questions and to learn from," Skeversky explained. "This is something which one can't really find in an undergraduate science department."
Time during the semester is so limited due to the double curriculum, that working during the summer provides these precious research opportunities. Undergraduate students across America often spend significant time involved in research laboratories, gaining teamwork skills and exposure to real-time scientific development. These experiences are becoming standard for pre-health applicants in an evermore competitive application process.
For the past three summers, fifth ear senior and physics major Dovid Skversky (YC '08), who has plans for graduate school next year, has been working research labs. Currently working with Dr. Fredy Zypman, assistant professor of Physics on the Wilf Campus, Skversky spent this past summer researching how electrons act in a parabolic well made up of a finite chain of atoms.
The work over the summer, Skversky explained, will hopefully become the initial stages of an honors thesis which he will be writing at the end of this academic year. Joining a lab on campus for a summer definitely has its advantages, including working with familiar faculty and students as well as the option of continuing into the school year. Nevertheless, in previous years, Skversky chose to intern in two off campus labs. He first worked at the Univerisity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 2005, then at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, in 2006, each summer working on a different project within those universities' respective physics departments.
"I was drawn to these institutions by the wide range of research opportunities available, as well as the extensive and well developed laboratories in almost any area of interest. It was great to have at least ten graduate students close by all the time to answer my questions and to learn from," Skeversky explained. "This is something which one can't really find in an undergraduate science department."
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