Frequently Asked Questions

Q: I came across your program in my search for research opportunities. I was just wondering, if your program was also available for international students who are non- citizens of the US.

A: Unfortunately, due to funding requirements from the National Science Foundation "Undergraduate students supported with NSF funds must be citizens or permanent residents of the United States or its possessions."   
 

Q: I am very interested in the IRIS Undergraduate Internship Program for this upcoming summer. Unfortunately, my classess do not end until after the orientation week. The website mentioned that special arrangements could be made to accomidate these situations. Could you provide more information?

A: We understand that for many students the date of the internship orientation falls before the end of their semester. Thus, the special arrangements are really a case-by-case thing. In short we expect all interns to attend at least a few days of the orientation. Given that the first day of that week is a holiday, most students should minimally be able to attend two days of the orientation while only missing a day or two of classes depending on how far they are traveling. Given the level of the internship, most students find their faculty to be extremely supportive this, and are generally quite accommodating (even allowing a make up final etc).

Q: Since there are different hosts each summer, I was wondering how the interns are assigned to the host institutions?

A: Once students are selected to the program (by a panel of three academic seismologists) all are given a list of projects (usually about 20) to review. Interns are then asked to provide a ranked list of their top three projects, along with a short summary of why they are most interested in these projects. The process of assigning an intern to a specific project is a very important one because it direclty impacts the overall success of the placement. Thus, final placements for all students is a careful process that involves a combination of factors. These include...
a) student ranking based on their selection to the program,
b) student interest in the project,
c) an alignment of skills/experiences with the demands of the project, as well as
d) the programs knowledge of the hosts personality etc.
Final matches are then reviewed by the selection committee. The majority of interns are place at either their first or second choice. This occurs because we offer such a diversity of project types and placement locations that demand for each project is distributed.  There are occasions where we do have to use a students third choice, and extremely rare situations were a students is place in a project that was not one of their top three. Over the years, we have found this process to be extremely successful from both the interns and the hosts perspectives.
 

If you don't see what you are looking for? Please contact the program facilitor to ask your question.