The Summer Undergraduate Research Experiences Program, or SURE, is a paid 10-week intensive research experience in which Indiana State University undergraduate students conduct research under the direction of a faculty mentor. Students can choose full-time or half-time positions. SURE scholarships are awarded via a competitive selection process. Students who seek to participate in SURE are strongly encouraged to meet potential research mentors before applying for the program and discuss participation in projects of interest. Projects are available most summers in biology, biomedical science, chemistry, environmental science, geology, physics, and several other disciplines. For more details, including a current list of projects, participating faculty, and an application form, go to our Sycamore Root site.
STUDENT TESTIMONIALS
After I graduated and started working as an analytical chemist, my greatest benefit was the experience that I gained during the SURE Program. The greatest skill that the SURE program teaches is how to adapt and solve real-world problems. Assisting faculty with their research and seeing the entire research process is the best opportunity for undergraduates to experience what it means to work in STEM. Those experiences confirmed that a career in STEM was the right choice for me.
The research experience during the SURE program was one of the most helpful experiences I had during undergraduate because it gave me an idea of the research environment that I am exposed to in graduate school. The tremendous help that I received from [my faculty mentor] during SURE and even during regular semesters put a significant impact on me as of today on the way I approach solving problems in research.
I spent two summers in the SURE program conducting chemistry research. Those summers exposed me to the world of organic chemistry beyond the sophomore-level course and ultimately played a vital role in my decision to go to graduate school and pursue a career as a chemist in industry. During my research experiences, I received one-on-one help from my faculty mentor inside the lab, who taught me many of the techniques that I use today in my current position at Eli Lilly. Being in the program also pushed me to become more comfortable presenting chemistry to an audience as well as reading scientific literature.
The SURE program became a turning point in my career development. The immense support and guidance from faculty enabled me to grow my scientific knowledge and apply this to research, which ultimately gave me the confidence to conduct an independent project. These valuable experiences led me to pursue a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry and ultimately find employment in the pharmaceutical industry. S.L., class of 2014
This experience was transformative for me and set me on my path to be a scientist. I greatly enjoyed diving deep on a specific scientific concept for the SURE program, but the one-on-one discussions around developing a scientific question and testable hypothesis set a spark of scientific curiosity in me that I still have strong to this day. W.J., class of 2009