Imagine a summer internship program willing to pay its student participants $2,800 for nine weeks of work specifically geared toward preparing the student for graduate school by building a research rsum and providing paid travel to seminars and graduate school campuses.
This actually exists – as the Ronald E. McNair Program, an internship offered through TRIO. The program has nine available openings for the nine-week summer program. With a requirement of 180 research hours in nine weeks, those willing to do the math will soon discover that a mere four hours of work per day is required to receive the nearly $3,000 stipend.
“A lot of undergraduates don’t know what to do to prepare for graduate school. They know they want to go, but they don’t know how to get there and how to stay there,” said Michelle Hurley, program coordinator and assistant director of TRIO. “And that is what we do completely. There are several services we offer to facilitate that.”
The Ronald McNair Postbaccalaureate Program began over a decade ago to help low-income, first-generation college students and students from minority backgrounds enter graduate school. This means that not all students interested in graduate school are necessarily eligible for the program, but even financially secure students who are first-generation may be eligible for McNair’s rigorous graduate school preparation and generous financial contribution.
“The McNair program has saved me over $400 on waivers for application fees [for graduate school]” said senior Hannah Longacre, program veteran.
So just what exactly do participants have to do? Each intern is assigned a faculty mentor at ETSU and chooses a research topic geared toward their respective major and personal interests.
“They participate in the lab in whatever tasks appeal to them,” said Dr. Chris Dula, ETSU professor of psychology and current McNair mentor.
For instance, one current psychology major involved in the program is researching aggressive driving behavior; another is examining the abuse of antibiotic drugs in the medical profession. Although the program has strong historical ties to the psychology department, no specific academic major is denied entry into the program.
“We could not do this program without the strong support of the ETSU faculty – it’s just that simple,” said Dr. Ronnie Gross, TRIO director. “If they were lukewarm to the program it would be relocated somewhere else. So we have outstanding faculty support. That’s the only reason we have it.”
“The main thing is we give them a set number of hours they have to complete. How they complete that is up to them and their mentor,” Hurley said.
The student intern will then work closely with their respective mentor on their chosen research topic for the duration of the program. Although nine weeks of internship breaks down to 45 working days at four hours per day, some students in the past have had to put in several full days throughout the program either because their topic took more time or because they were engaged in other McNair-related events.
Besides the seminars about getting into graduate school, participants of this summer’s program can look forward to a free trip to tour the campuses of Berkley and Stanford.
“We’ll fly the students out there,” Hurley said, adding that other expenses will also be covered.
Many McNair interns are also eligible to have their summer housing paid for, to say nothing of the $1,000 being pumped into each departmental research lab.
Students interested in participating, must be low-income, minority or first-generation college students, have at least 60 completed undergraduate credit hours and must be U.S. citizens or have permanent visas. Additionally, eligible candidates must currently be completing their undergraduate education, but eligibility is not limited merely to ETSU students. For more information, call Hurley of TRIO Programs at 439-4879.

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