Research Experience

• Besides good coursework and grades, the first thing most graduate programs will be looking for is research experience.
• If you think graduate school is one of your possible futures, sophomore year is a good time to get serious about finding out what opportunities are available and appealing to your interests.
• Biology and BMB majors at Gettysburg generally have 2 options.  The most obvious is to work with a Gettysburg professor, either during the school year, or over the summer, or both.  Another alternative is to apply for a summer research program at another college or university.  There are many such off-campus programs designed specifically to give scientific research experience to undergraduates.  Of course, some students end up having more than one research experience.  The more the better, though be aware that there is often a trade-off between having lots of short research experiences and having one longer experience.  The former gives you exposure to a variety of experimental techniques and research environments, while the latter may allow to go further in depth and to follow an experiment from start to finish.
• Off-campus summer programs can offer exposure to research techniques not available at Gettysburg, as well as giving you a close-up view of the kind of research university where you might go to graduate school.  You'll be working in close proximity with graduate students, so you'll get a good feel for what the life of a graduate student is like.  However, the programs are generally very short (about 2 months), and practically even shorter, considering travel, move-in, and adjustment to living in a new place on your own.  Keep in mind that this constraint can greatly restrict project possibilities - it is very rare (though not impossible!) to accrue enough data to publish or present at a scientific conference.  Another potential downside to these programs is that if you are in a big lab, you'll often be working much more closely with a graduate student than with a professor.
• Doing research with a Gettysburg professor limits you to the college's resources, but can also have a number of distinct advantages.  One advantage is that you'll often have much more time to work on a project - you can work over the summer, during the year, and often turn your work into a 460 capstone project.  As such, you may have more opportunity to tackle a truly independent project, where you are integrally involved in designing the experiment, carrying it out, troubleshooting it when it doesn't work, analyzing the data, and preparing the results to present at a conference or publish in a scientific journal.  You'll probably work much more closely with a professor than you would in a summer research program at a big university.  This can make for a much better educational experience, and also allows you to get to know a professor very well at the research and personal levels, which can make for a powerful recommendation.
• If you think you might be interested in working with a Gettysburg professor, the first step is to find out about their research.  Even if you haven't met a professor or taken their class, check out all the faculty webpages on the Biology Department website, or consult the Department's guide to 460 research projects, which includes a description of the type of research each professor does.  This guide is available in the Biology Department Office.  After you've found one or more professors whose work sounds interesting, introduce yourself and ask about research opportunities.  If you think you might want to work with a professor, contact them well ahead of time.  For example, for opportunities over the summer, the fall semester would be the ideal time to start the ball rolling.
• In exploring off-campus summer research programs, you also want to start looking early.  A multitude of institutions around the country each admit a small group of students (usually 6-12) to spend 2-3 months over the summer designing and executing a research project with a faculty advisor.  Travel and housing are usually covered and stipends cover food and living expenses.  The websites listed below contain lists of such programs at various universities all across the country, and these are a good place to start looking.  Application deadlines for these programs are typically early in the spring semester (January or February), though this can vary. 

NSF - REU - http://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/reu_search.cfmSULI
SULI -- http://www.scied.science.doe.gov/scied/erulf/choose.html
http://www.aamc.org/members/great/summerlinks.htm