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OURFA2M2

REU Workshop

Alvaro Carbonero

Brittany Gelb

Michael Johnson

Luke Seaton

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Funding and Support Acknowledgments

  • National Science Foundation
    • NSF Grant number: DUE-2230388
  • Brittany (NSF DGE-1842213)
  • Luke (Michigan State University)
  • Partner: Mathematical Association of America

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What kind of program is right for me?

Funded opportunity to work on a research project with a mathematician

Research Programs

Take specialized courses not offered at your school

Study Abroad Programs

Help students learn and sharpen your own skills

Teaching / Mentorship

Work on projects with professional mentors

Internships

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Work on a project (maybe for course credit!) at your school

Institutional Opportunities

Dive into a new topic for a few weeks

Short Academic Programs

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What is an REU and why you should apply

What is an REU?

  • REU stands for Research Experience for Undergraduates
  • Summer programs that allow undergraduates to participate in research projects full time for 6-10 weeks
  • Mostly funded by the National Science Foundation, some funded by NSA and other orgs

Why should you apply to do an REU?

  • Get paid!
  • Try out research
  • See if graduate school in math might be a good fit for you
  • Make math friends
  • Receive mentorship
  • Learn professional math skills like how to typeset with LaTeX
  • Funding for attending math conferences

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Eligibility

  • Few for freshmen, typically aimed at sophomores/juniors
  • Usually for US citizens and US permanent residents
  • Must not have finished your undergrad degree prior to participating
  • Theoretical math programs usually require at least 1 proofs-based course unless it is an early-stage REU program
  • There are NSF-funding restrictions so similar programs with other funding sources might not have them

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How to Find REU’s

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Programs that Include International Students

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Materials to Apply for an REU

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Materials

  • Transcript / classes taken
  • CV: employment, research experiences (if any), projects, conferences attended, professional affiliations/societies/memberships
  • Letters of recommendation
  • Personal Statement
  • Supplemental materials

Our blog post about applying to REU’s: https://blogs.ams.org/mathmentoringnetwork/2021/01/20/advice-for-applying-to-reu-programs-from-recent-participants/

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Letters of Recommendation

  • Find deadline on REU info page
    • Note: Deadline for letters may be different than application deadline
  • Ask your letter writers at least 3 weeks before the letter deadline
    • Note: Some professors prefer up to a 2 month notice. We recommend 4 weeks (1 month).
  • Who should I ask?
    • Follow specific requirements for the application (e.g. must be math professor)
    • Ask for letters from people who know you well!
  • How do I ask?
    • Example: “Professor, I’m interested in applying to an REU. I am excited about this opportunity because of X, Y, and Z. Would you be willing to write a strong letter of recommendation for me.”
    • It can be helpful to provide drafts of your application materials
  • Here’s a helpful guide: https://afieldguidetomath.wordpress.com/2021/05/08/how-to-request-a-math-recommendation-letter/

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Personal Statement

  • This is the place where you have the most control over your application
  • Why do you want to do an REU? What skills will you gain?
    • If interested in graduate school, you should mention this
  • Show your enthusiasm and interest
    • Whether it’s in math as a whole or in a particular research topic
    • In a particular program: What’s special about that program that others don’t have?
  • What qualities/attributes/skills and experiences that you’ve had before make you qualified to do research?
    • These could be unrelated to math or STEM, if they’re experiences that make you a better researcher
    • Examples of qualities/attributes/skills: software skills, overcoming academic failure, demonstrated curiosity
    • If you’ve done research before, make sure to share what you learned both technically & skills-wise
  • If you don’t have research opportunities at your school, you should say this. These programs are meant to help students like you!
  • Can address any issues with your grades or challenges
  • Get as many people to review and give feedback as possible
  • Tailor this to how you think you can best represent who you are as a mathematician. This is your chance to tell your story and share your excitement for a program.

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Types of Applicants - Suggestions for Personal Statement (1/2)

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Types of Applicants - Suggestions for Personal Statement (2/2)

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Participating in a Program

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Teamwork: Tips & Experiences

  • Tackle larger, more challenging problems
  • It’s the best way to practice communicating mathematics!
  • Built-in accountability partners
  • Potential for interpersonal conflict
  • Team members may contribute unevenly to the project

Cons

Pros

Ask for help or speak up when you don’t understand. Don’t hide!

Break up tasks and allocate responsibilities!

Listen to and respect other people's ideas.

Remember that everyone is coming from various backgrounds.

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Our Experiences: Luke

  • Attended SURIEM in person
  • Did research related to knot theory
  • Published a paper and presented at multiple conferences
  • Learned about several other math programs from other students and professors in the REU
  • Made connections that led to more participation in the math community
  • Learned that math research was a good fit

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Our Experiences: Brittany (Lafayette REU in 2019)

  • Applied with very limited experience and a lot of imposter syndrome
  • My application:
    • Being inspired by seeing a talk about graph theory
    • My experience being stuck for awhile on an extra credit problem
    • How I wrote a paper for a general audience about that problem and submitted it for an undergrad journal at my school
    • Why I chose to be a math major even though I found math to be hard
    • Emphasized non-technical skills such as writing skills
  • It was the perfect fit: I ended up working with a mathematician who did her PhD with the speaker of the talk I wrote about!
  • Found an awesome community there
  • Collaborative project led to a publication and presentations such as at JMM
    • The speaker I saw recently cited us in his survey paper!

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Our Experiences: Brittany (DIMACS REU in 2020)

  • More experienced at this point, however I attended a SLAC that didn’t offer many advanced courses → I emphasized what I achieved given the resources available to me
  • Did an independent project with an accomplished, tenured professor at an R1 institution
    • I wasn’t very experienced with coding and lacked some foundational knowledge
    • Working from home, alone, during a pandemic was tough
    • I was afraid to ask a lot of questions
    • An REU is for your growth as a student: Honestly and explicitly communicate if you’re struggling and if you need more support
  • I decided to go to grad school at Rutgers, and now participate in a research workshop/seminar with my former REU mentor

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Our Experiences: Alvaro

  • Attended 2019 Lafayette REU, and 2020 RIT REU
  • Did research on discrete geometry (scary name for points in the plane) and graph theory
  • Published papers, presented at conferences, and got good rec letters!
  • In person REU had AMAZING people
  • The REUs helped to give me confidence to apply to other opportunities

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Our Experiences: Michael

  • Polymath Jr. REU
    • I studied under Dr. Marion Campisi (San Jose State University)
      • Minimal Stick Index of Brunnian Links Within The Cubic Lattice.
    • Presented on two of the seminal papers in this field,
    • Helped build upper bound conformations, and worked on lower bound proofs through case work.
    • Became proficient with LaTeX
  • SEISMIC Scholar at The SEISMIC Collaboration
    • The Sloan Equity and Inclusion in STEM Introductory Courses Collaboration
    • Weekly professional development seminars
    • Wrote a literature review on equity in grading
    • Explored equitable university policies
    • Catalogued placement exam policies,
    • Created one-pagers for more equitable grading policies.
    • Poster presentation on “Exploring and Supporting Equitable Policies From the Classroom to the Campus.”

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But What If I Don’t Feel Qualified?

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Your Hesitations May Be:

  • You never participated or succeeded in a math competition.
  • You have only completed a few math classes or have not taken many (or any) upper-division mathematics classes.
  • You have never done research before or don’t know what the research process in mathematics entails.
  • You don’t know anybody from your school who has gone to an REU program.
  • Your school is not nationally recognized for their math department.
  • Your overall GPA is not high.
  • You don’t feel confident in your mathematical abilities.
  • You believe you will be rejected (for any reason above or others).

Apply anyway!

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Opportunities Besides REUs Or How To Prepare for Future Application Cycles

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REUs are very competitive, so aim to have a back-up plan

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Institutional Opportunities

  • Summer research grants at your institution
  • Some professors have grants
  • Informal study/research with a professor
  • Semester for-credit research/independent studies
  • Formal research programs at your institution
    • Ask your department/honors college for thesis programs and research for credit programs

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Research Programs

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Diversity Conferences

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Diversity Conferences

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Other conferences/Seminars/Colloquia

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Research Internships

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Read Some Math Literature/Content

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Teaching/Mentorship Job Opportunities

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Writing Workshop

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What are people reading applications looking for?

  • You might be feeling stuck on how to write your personal statement if you have little or no research experience, and you don’t have in-depth mathematical knowledge on many or any topics
  • The good thing is that these things are NOT necessary in order to apply or get into an REU
  • Many REU directors and mentors who have attended OURFA2M2 have shared that they’re not necessarily looking for students with lots of experience
  • Rather, they’re looking for students who have potential; students who will be:
    • Enthusiastic about math
    • Willing to challenge themselves, and�For a group project, a thoughtful and considerate team member or leader

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Goals of the Writing Workshop

  • Rather than focusing on how to polish or organize your statement, we’re going to focus on generating raw material and ideas
  • We’ll go through a series of questions in three sections that will help you develop a detailed picture of your potential to do math research
    • We’ll explain the question or questions to choose from, and then set a writing timer
    • During the writing time, your goal is to record ideas on paper
      • Try to not judge yourself or focus on grammar or wording
      • At this stage, you are the only reader
      • Try to keep writing and thinking the entire time to stimulate your memory and creativity.
  • You can later use these written fragments to build a personal statement that you can modify for each REU that you apply to
    • By generating examples, you’ll be able to “show” rather than “tell”
    • It’s important to convey personal fit in the final personal statement; however, we won’t cover that. Our handout has questions for you to write about on your own once you know where you are going to apply

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Math Enthusiasm (Section 1/3)

  • Consider a time when you felt enthusiastic about math outside your classwork–for example, when watching a YouTube video, hearing a talk, or reading about a math concept.
    • What mathematical concept or topic were you excited about, and what did you find compelling or interesting about it?
    • Name one general feature of the concept that could be used to describe other concepts or topics in math: for example, maybe you can draw pictures or visualize the concept, it involves a clever trick or calculation, or it involves abstract definitions that build off of each other.
  • Consider a time when you felt enthusiastic about math in a class or when doing classwork.
    • What mathematical concept were you excited about, and what did you find compelling or interesting about it?
    • Name one general feature of the concept that could be used to describe other concepts or topics in math: for example, maybe you can draw pictures or visualize the concept, it involves a clever trick or calculation, or it involves abstract definitions that build off of each other.
  • Recall a time where you did extra math work by your own initiative.
    • What did you do?
    • Why did you do it? Was it because you wanted to learn more about the subject? What in particular called your attention?
    • What did you gain from the experience?

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Collaboration Skills (Section 2/3)

Many REU programs have research groups. Collaborating on math research involves skills like (1) listening to others carefully, (2) explaining your ideas with clarity, (3) honestly communicating how well you understand other people’s ideas, and (4) respectfully disagreeing sometimes.

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To be a compelling applicant to an REU research group, you want to give examples to show that you have these skills. So, let’s brainstorm about some previous experiences that involved collaboration:

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  • Consider a time when you worked in a pair or a group. For example, maybe you have co-workers at a job, you have tutored or been tutored, you studied or worked on homework with a classmate, you worked in a research group in the past, or you had to deal with a difficult situation at work/school.

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    • Write about that experience and in 2-3 sentences describe how it relates to one of the skills labeled 1-4.

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Mathematical Challenges (Section 3/3)

Research is hard and CHALLENGING. It’s about dealing with questions whose answers are unknown. So, let’s brainstorm about how you’ve approached challenges in math in the past.

  • Think of a time when a particular math problem really challenged you. Maybe you were stumped for multiple hours, days, or weeks.
    • What did it feel like when you got stumped?
    • What did you do in order to finally solve the problem? Or, if you didn’t solve it, how did you deal with not finding an answer?

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  • Think of a time when a math class challenged you. For example, maybe you didn’t do well on an exam or you struggled to complete the homework.
    • Write down a sentence describing that experience.
    • Now think of how you specifically overcame the challenge at the time or what you learned from that experience. For example, maybe you got help from a particular person or you learned a specific new study skill.

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Congrats! You made it through the writing workshop!

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General Questions

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Discord Server to Connect to Others Here:

https://discord.gg/k55X5hXv

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Let’s Talk About Your Situations!

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