Undergraduate Program Testimonials

From our students:

"I am so thankful and grateful to have been able to work with your team, and I will forever carry the many teachings I received."
-Lakeishia B., REU intern

"This was a totally new experience... It was fun and it was also challenging. It has definitely changed things!"
- Julie U., REU intern

"This program gave me an opportunity to really get involved with people with PhD's, with doctors and researchers, and I really got a chance to get to know them and what they did. They were able to sit down with me and give me advice."
- Matthew J., REU intern

"Before the REU program I had some friends that used wheelchairs, but I hadn't actually had the experience designing technology for them. It was interesting to see the equipment we have here as well as use that equipment to make the lives for these people easier and better."
- Dianna S., REU intern

"I would definitely recommend this REU program to other students because there is a lot you can learn, from theory to doing the actual practical work. You meet a lot of good people who know a lot about assistive technology and who have been in the field and know the ins and outs and the secrets to working with different companies."
- Logan C., REU intern

From our mentors:

"The REU and TIPeD programs have been great assets to our lab, department, and the field of rehabilitation science. The programs are win-win: my grad students have benefitted from having the opportunity to mentor younger students, my research projects have benefited by having talented students bring new enthusiasm to the projects, and the interns are exposed to workshops and other experiences that help support them in their future careers."
- Jon Pearlman, PhD, Faculty Mentor 

"Serving as a graduate mentor was a rewarding opportunity for me to share my "secret" tips of success in (graduate) school with my mentees, as well as to caution them on key points I wish I knew about sooner. Conversely, my mentees acted as a catalyst in my own work to make me speed up my thought process and the fluidity with which I can present my research work or future plans. The rate at which I was asked questions and received input from my mentees really forced me to keep myself in high performance mode and cover more ground with my research agenda. My experiences in mentoring have been tremendously positive and actually have carried forward into ongoing collaborations."
- Nahom Beyene, Graduate Student Mentor

"Through mentoring students I have become a better researcher by strengthening my communication skills, interpersonal skills, and leadership abilities. As an undergraduate I participated in multiple NSF REU programs. Through these experiences I gained invaluable exposure to the scientific process, research, and the field of biomedical engineering. I worked on projects that expanded far beyond what I was learning in the classroom that would make a difference in the real world. As a graduate student, I now have the opportunity to help mentor younger students through this same process. Seeing these students discover the same excitement for the STEM field is truly rewarding. The field of QoLT offers a unique opportunity to work on projects that often make an immediate impact on improving people’s lives."
- Lynn Worobey, Graduate Student Mentor

"Mentoring REU students, who were at various levels in their studies, has been a very rewarding experience for me as I got to teach research aspects such as project planing, breaking a problem into multiple sub-components prior to solving it and clearly presenting you work to your audience. I have also learned from the REU students about different perspectives they have about assistive technology."
- Shiv Hiremath, Graduate Student Mentor

"Being a mentor for the REU program is a great experience because it allows me to show an undergraduate student how research is done and lets them get an understanding of what graduate school and research is like. It also really helps me by having another person working on the project so that more progress can be accomplished."
- Jon Duvall, Graduate Student Mentor

 Education > Undergraduates > Testimonials