Get Your Seminars!

The chemistry major includes the requirement to attend 12 seminars (total) during the junior and senior years. In order to make as many seminar opportunities available as possible, we are directing your attention to the Carleton College chemistry seminar program, which can be used to augment your seminar attendance record. In order to obtain credit for an off-campus seminar, take notes during the seminar and have a Carleton College faculty member sign your notes (or a St. Olaf professor, if one is present!) Check the right edge of our Blog or the Carleton seminar schedule.

This is an actual REQUIREMENT! If you don't finish your seminars, you don't earn a chemistry major!

Summer Research Opportunity

A poster describing an NSF-funded REU program at the University of Southern California Chemistry Department hangs on Prof. Abdella's bulletin board in the hallway. Or click on the title of this blog for more information.

REU Opportunity in Nebraska

Nebraska recently wrote to the chemistry department seeking help in identifying students who would be interested in their summer research programs funded by NSF. Click the title of this blog for more info.

Have a little extra time to help an Ole earn a Ph.D.?

You are invited to participate in an online study for an Ole's Ph.D. dissertation. The study is designed to test ideas about new ways to design the user interface of workplace applications so they will be easier to learn and use. You will use 1 of 3 versions. See the YouTube video first, then take the study at http://phdstudy.starcatcher.com/. The study takes 1-2 hours and must be completed by the end of January. Have fun!

Are you interested in teaching in an urban setting?

The MATCH Corps, a highly selective one-year urban education fellowship, is looking for top-notch, gritty and determined college chemistry majors who are interested in joining next year’s Corps. Candidates should be interested in teaching in the inner-city. The application process is described at: http://www.matchschool.org/matchcorps/process.htm. The application form is found at: http://apply.matchschool.org/apply.php. Here is some more information about MATCH Corps:

The MATCH Corps program began in 2004 and is the first of its kind in the nation. The Corps is a group of 140 top recent college graduates who work one-on-one with six to eight MATCH High School, Middle School, or Elementary School students each day for an entire academic year. Corps members live together in apartments nearby the Middle School and Elementary School, and in a dorm on the top floor of the High School. All three schools are open-admission Charter Public Schools in Boston, MA. This full-time service year program is designed to fully close the academic achievement gap between minority students and their non-minority peers, one student at a time. Each Corps member works to guarantee the academic success of MATCH students while building personal relationships. Corps members also undertake secondary projects such as serving as teaching assistants, and may also coach teams and power extracurricular programs.

MATCH also offers an optional teacher training program called MATCH Teacher Residency. In MTR, Corps members receive additional training on the weekends with the aim of becoming unusually effective first year teachers in high-poverty schools. Graduates of MTR go on to teach at some of the most highly regarded charter schools in the country and tend to outperform other rookie teachers in the classroom.

To learn more about MATCH, check out this ABC News special: http://bit.ly/qxvhbX

For more information, have a look at our website: http://www.matchschool.org/index.htm

REU in Aquatic Chemical Ecology

Another summer research opportunity, this one at Georgia Tech. The application deadline is February 15, 2012. At that time faculty mentors will select participants and will offer students places in the program starting late-February. The full-time, 10-week program will start in late May and run until the end of July. Participants will receive a stipend of $4500 plus accommodations with kitchen facilities in university housing, and help with travel expenses to and from Atlanta.

Students can go to our website to get more information and to apply. Any U.S. citizen or permanent resident who is currently enrolled in an undergraduate degree program is eligible, unless they have already been part of an NSF-REU program in Ocean Sciences or unless they will graduate before this summer. We are particularly interested in increasing our proportion of minority students and in reaching students at non-PhD granting universities.

2012 CENTC Undergraduate Summer Research Program