Student Research Positions vs. Internships: Exploring the Overlap and Distinctions

For students seeking to gain experience and explore career paths, both research positions and internships offer valuable opportunities. While traditionally viewed as distinct, these experiences share common ground and contribute to career readiness in complementary ways. This article explores the definitions, similarities, and differences between student research positions and internships, providing insights for students to make informed decisions about which path best suits their goals.

Defining Student Research and Internships

The Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) defines undergraduate research as "a mentored investigation or creative inquiry conducted by undergraduates that seeks to make a scholarly or artistic contribution to knowledge." This typically involves working closely with a faculty mentor on a specific research project, often within a university setting.

In contrast, work-integrated learning (WIL), which includes internship-type experiences, is defined as "an educational approach involving three parties - the student, educational institution, and an external stakeholder - consisting of authentic work-focused experiences as an intentional component of the curriculum. Students learn through active engagement in purposeful work tasks, which enable the integration of theory with meaningful practice". Internships often involve working at a company or organization in a role related to the student's field of study. Compensation for an internship can be wages (preferably) or academic credit.

Key Differences and Similarities

At first glance, research and internships appear quite different. Research is often conducted on campus between one mentor and one student, while internships send the student into the "real world" with support from an academic mentor as well as a site supervisor. However, a closer look reveals significant overlap.

Traditional Distinctions:

Setting: Research is often conducted on campus, while internships take place in external organizations.
Focus: Research emphasizes scholarly or artistic contributions, while internships focus on practical work experience.
Supervision: Research typically involves a faculty mentor, while internships involve both an academic mentor and a site supervisor.

Emerging Similarities:

Skill Development: Both research and internships provide opportunities to develop valuable practical skills.
Applied Setting: Both experiences offer applied settings for learning and growth.
Mentorship: Both involve working with mentors who can help prepare students for the next stage of their careers.
Career Readiness: Both contribute to career readiness by developing competencies valued by employers.

Research as Internship, Internship as Research

In some cases, research can function as an internship, and vice versa. Some faculty members have observed that students engaged in research are learning valuable practical skills in an applied setting, working with a mentor who is helping them prepare for the next stage of their career. Additionally, some students undertake summer research at off-campus sites with research mentors who teach them specific techniques.

Conversely, some internships involve students conducting research projects, either independently or in collaboration with their site. This blurring of lines highlights the potential for both experiences to contribute to a student's overall growth and development.

Career Readiness and the Role of CUR

The Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) promotes the idea of undergraduate research as career readiness. CUR proposes that we frame student gains in research from the perspective of competencies developed by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), which are the bread and butter standards in the internship world. As we move forward, I believe it will be to our benefit to help students see the overlap among their experiences in addition to the distinguishing qualities, and to encourage them to think about their experiences in terms of their growth and development on the whole rather than as a line on their resume.

Funding and Compensation

Funding scenarios may differ and vary to a very great extent. Internships are positions wherein services are exchanged for experience between a student and an organization. Compensation for an internship can be wages (preferably) or academic credit. A fellowship is sort of like a scholarship for work. While internships are usually available for undergraduate students or recent graduates, fellowships are usually reserved for candidates currently enrolled in, or who have recently completed an advanced degree program (i.e. master’s or doctoral). Fellows usually have employee status within the host organization, therefore, regardless of their length, fellowships are more likely to include benefits such as paid time off, insurance, holidays, and professional development (conferences, webinars, workshops…) funding. The extent of these benefits are set at the discretion of the host and/or funding organization.

How to Find Research Internships

Working as a research intern in a lab is one of the finest ways to head start your career in research. However, at the same time, finding a research internship as an undergrad (with little or often no experience) can be a really daunting process.

Gaining Initial Experience:

First things first, no one is going to hire you without any kind of experience. Almost everything from 'Artificial Intelligence' to 'Acting' you have experts designing online courses that can help you in some way or the other! So doing a MOOC related to your research interest whether it be Development and Organization of Public Policy or Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) is certainly a great way to start your journey towards something new and exciting.

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Extrapolating and Exploring Ideas:

Once through with the course, the elements of the course itself will help you in further extrapolating and exploring ideas. Sometime relevant people and research papers that you should be targetting would also be just a hand away! Start fiddling with GitHub projects, make something really simple from scratch. You have realized your will, you just have to develop the touch for the same.

Approaching Experts and Guides:

This process can take up anything from 6 to 12 months of your life, depending on your capacity, research interests and certainly the field. So almost after a year of fiddling around, you are ready to approach experts and guides in this field to further help you in walking through your desired field. Be prepared for rejections! Most of the labs in the world don't like taking/hiring interns as they need too much help and are there for a short period of time (generally three months or so). So by the time interns start contributing, essentially it's time for them to leave. However, interns bring a lot of energy and there are professors and people who really enjoy working with interns at the same time! In this process, we are supposed to find such folks, simple.

Creative Approaches:

This process can be really creative and funny sometimes. For instance, a friend of mine updated his profile picture in order to reveal that he has been to Singapore and the professor replied:“Have you been here? I can’t really pay you a lot, so if you have someone with whom you can stay we can go ahead :)”So you really don't know what is going to work and what won't. The approach to such a problem in life is pragmatism. When one approach fails, believe that some others might work! And keep trying!

Crafting a Resume:

Now based on your research for almost a year decide upon tentative fields and research areas that you wish to apply for. And there is a very high chance that they have gone through this years ago :P Once decided, make a resume highlighting your interests and projects that you have worked on. You don’t have to mention every single work ever done by you in your resume. Try highlighting stuff that you want them to know about, writing all the major projects etc. which had a significant contribution from your side. A resume is a door through which they get the first impression of your personality and interests. Put a sufficient amount of energy into drafting it.

The "Why" Factor:

I had made a short bio, it was like a two-page document in which I tried to justify my motivation. Essentially, how all my projects have taught me and helped me in heading towards what I am interested in exploring! This worked pretty well, as at the end I would always add a section “Why” so and so university!

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The Interview Process:

After 100's of rejections hopefully, you will find a couple of professors who would be interested in taking you as an intern. However, you have to understand this is a blind shot both for the professor as well as the student. It's very likely that the professor would arrange a call or a skype chat to further understand and gauge your interests and knowledge. Please take this as an opportunity to understand your fitment in the lab you are trying to work for. It's not an exam or company that you are trying to qualify for. Most likely you would become a part of an esoteric group with people having a very streamlined set of interests. You have to judge whether you would enjoy working with/for them and is this what you are looking for! You have spent a substantial amount of energy and resources in finding 'a' internship but your quest is towards 'the' internship that you are looking for! It's okay to be flexible, but look at the whole situation very comprehensively before saying a 'yes!'

Benefits of Mentoring Students as Interns

Over the past 20+ years my groups at a US national lab have hired many student interns at both the undergraduate and graduate levels (and a few high school students, but that is another story). There is some burden on the staff to have a project for the student, but there are always things that should be done but someone hasn't gotten around to doing quite yet.

Student Capabilities:

After someone has mentored a student a few times it actually gets pretty easy to plan the scope of a summer for the student. Usually though, any 'revectoring' is because interns have significant capability to amaze and overachieve. You make the mistake of underestimating what a good motivated student can accomplish in 10 weeks fulltime. Sure, they need to come up to speed in some areas (our ES&H training is extensive for example), but they often are quite smart and adaptable. For one student project last year we hoped they would help build some novel hardware and participate in the high voltage testing. They ended up taking over running the tester, identified some hardware and software issues, fixed them, and wrote some new data analysis routines to get a better, faster output.

Fresh Perspectives:

Many staff like to mentor and work with students. It is enjoyable to have them around - fresh eyes, fresh perspectives, good questions. We get to identify talented students who are interested in the work we do. We can bring them back the next summer if they are good (and willing). If an undergraduate we can help them determine what grad schools to apply to, write letters of recommendation, and suggest what advisors to contact. We build a pipeline of possible good hires in the future.

Opportunities for Undergraduates

Carnegie Mellon University: The Data Analytics for Science Immersion Experience (DASIE) is a fully funded, weeklong program that introduces undergraduate students to the many ways data informs scientific work.
University of South Carolina: 2026 REU- UofSC Department of Chemical Engineering and the Savannah River National Laboratory. Participants will work in a dynamic and cutting-edge research environment and perform research involving designing and synthesizing nanostructured materials for energy conversion and storage processes.
University of Pennsylvania, University of FL, Purdue University, or University of CA Merced: NSF ERC Internet of Things for Precision Agriculture seeks undergraduates for its REU Program. Students work with researchers on technologies that advance food, energy, and water security.
University of South Carolina: NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates in Quantum Information Science. The REU will offer a nine-week, fully funded summer research experience focused on cutting-edge topics such as Quantum software testing, AI-driven quantum compiler optimization, and Quantum machine learning.
University of Kansas: FROST: Fostering Research Opportunities in Sustainable Technologies 10-week immersive undergrad summer program for students in the field of HVACR systems with a focus on sustainable refrigerants.
Georgetown University: The Political Science Predoctoral Summer Institute (PS-PSI) is a week-long training program for students who are considering pursuing a Ph.D. in political science or a closely related field.
Florida Atlantic University: Summer Institute in Biostatistics and Data Science (SIBDS) OPPORTUNITY FOR UNDERGRAD MAJORS IN MATH, STATISTICS, AND DATA SCIENCE-NIH FUNDED SUMMER TRAINEESHIP!

Making the Right Choice

When deciding between a research position and an internship, students should consider their individual goals, interests, and career aspirations. Factors to consider include:

Learning Objectives: What skills and knowledge do you hope to gain from the experience?
Career Goals: How will this experience help you achieve your long-term career goals?
Personal Preferences: Do you prefer a more academic or practical setting?
Financial Needs: Are you seeking paid compensation or academic credit?

By carefully evaluating these factors, students can make informed decisions about which type of experience will best support their personal and professional development.

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