Visit to a graduate school, contributed by Scott Thede, DePauw University

Idea: Take the students on a trip (usually overnight) to a graduate school.
Objective: Introduce students who have not experienced a graduate school to the world of graduate school.
What Works Well: This approach is a great exposure to graduate school for students who do not attend institutions with graduate programs. The students get to speak to a panel of graduate students, giving them a window into life in graduate school. They also hear professors present on their projects and about the application process.
What Doesn’t Work Well: This idea is not of use to REU sites that host their own graduate programs.
Assessment Data: For the last summer (2009), my first as PI, we surveyed the students when they arrived and when they left. One of the questions on the exit survey was “The trip to see the xxx University graduate program was worthwhile. The average student response on this question was 4.9/5 (for 10 students), where 5 means “strongly agree.”

Contributed by Scott Thede, DePauw University