The Massasoit STEM Internship Program

 

Photo/Video Credits: Brent Olson

What is the Massasoit STEM Research Program?

Mas­sas­oit STEM offers Research Intern­ships that are unlike any oth­er intern­ship you will find. The impor­tant dif­fer­ence is that these posi­tions are more like a real job—doing real sci­ence. You will not spend your time watch­ing oth­er peo­ple do the impor­tant stuff! We believe that the best way to learn how sci­ence works is to do real sci­ence, even if you have lit­tle or no expe­ri­ence and have not had very many sci­ence classes.

Even though, our research is done by stu­dents, we main­tain the stan­dard of pro­duc­ing mean­ing­ful, pub­li­ca­tion-qual­i­ty sci­en­tif­ic results. To main­tain these stan­dards, stu­dents are trained to inde­pen­dent­ly do the many tasks required for a suc­cess­ful research pro­gram. That is why we say these posi­tions are more like a real research job than a tra­di­tion­al internship.

So then, why do we call it an internship?

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, intern­ships are meant to allow peo­ple to get expe­ri­ence in a cer­tain field, to learn about the jobs they may want to have in the future, and to gain knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence that will help them land that first job. Even though we have high stan­dards for our work, we are also ded­i­cat­ed to these goals, and we focus on teach­ing research while doing research. In oth­er words, we believe that the best way to teach good research is to do good research. Fur­ther­more, we know that good research involves much more than just col­lect­ing data or doing some menial, repet­i­tive task in the lab­o­ra­to­ry. To be a func­tion­al sci­en­tist requires many dif­fer­ent skillsets.

By work­ing with the senior researchers in our group (fac­ul­ty & staff), stu­dents will improve sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­cy and pub­lic speak­ing in our Jour­nal Club, learn exper­i­men­tal design and data col­lec­tion by par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Native Pol­li­na­tor Project, and even have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to devel­op and present their own find­ings at a sci­en­tif­ic meet­ing like ESA (Eco­log­i­cal Soci­ety of Amer­i­ca). These activ­i­ties are part of a process that is designed to improve pro­fes­sion­al­ism, soft skills, and crit­i­cal think­ing. The con­fi­dence that comes with these achieve­ments will set you up well for what­ev­er chal­lenges follow.

What if I I am not a biol­o­gy major (or just not inter­est­ed in ecology)?

Yes, if you want to be an ecol­o­gist, this pro­gram might seem like a per­fect fit. How­ev­er, we have had many great interns who were pur­su­ing sev­er­al oth­er types of STEM edu­ca­tion. The good news is that the foun­da­tion­al skills of sci­ence are uni­ver­sal. In fact, most of our research interns do not want to become ecol­o­gists, and a large per­cent­age do not even want to be any kind of biol­o­gist. You have lots of time to decide what you want your career to be. We want to help you get some basic skills that can help get there once you decide, even if you change your mind a cou­ple of times.

     The intern­ship is part-time dur­ing the school year (10 hours/week), and full-time (30 hours/week) dur­ing the summer.

The pay is min­i­mum wage.

Please fol­low the link below to apply, and email ques­tions to STEMResearch@massasoit.edu. Pref­er­ence will be giv­en to those stu­dents who have par­tic­i­pat­ed in the STEM Schol­ars program.

Click here for the application!

Still not sure if this internship is for you? Try taking a look at some of our current and future projects below!

Bee Com­mu­ni­ty Sam­pling, Pro­cess­ing, and Identification

Learn how to sam­ple for and iden­ti­fy bees, as well as many oth­er small organ­isms. We cur­rent­ly allow sam­pling dur­ing the Spring sea­son to the Fall. Once sam­pled, you will have the chance to learn how to process and iden­ti­fy bees from non-bee organ­isms such as wasps and flies; how­ev­er, the next step would be to fur­ther iden­ti­fy any bees as close to species as possible.

Bee Data­base

Sam­pling and pro­cess­ing bees is great, but what we do with those is the most impor­tant part. Cur­rent­ly, we have a data­base that has around a decade’s worth of qual­i­ty data relat­ed to the diverse com­mu­ni­ty of native and non-native species of bee and non-bee spec­i­mens. Data entry to that scale takes true dili­gence from those who take part. 

Bee Foren­sics Project

Cur­rent­ly, in one of our most inter­est­ing projects. We col­lect, extract, and sequence DNA from bee-col­lect­ed pollen to bet­ter under­stand what sort of plants they’re tar­get­ing. We are even look­ing at the bac­te­ria with­in their guts since bees will ingest pollen dur­ing pollen collection! 

STEM Pre­sen­ta­tions

Par­tic­i­pate in local events that help spread this sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge as well as being a pos­i­tive force with­in many com­mu­ni­ties. These events can be both paid and vol­un­teer work.

Cell Cul­tures

This project is cur­rent­ly in the ear­ly stages of devel­op­ment as we fur­ther under­stand how to best incor­po­rate it with our cur­rent research pro­gram. Please stay tuned because the poli­cies and terms of the cell cul­ture project are sub­ject to change.