Tips for writing a good CCOP CORE internship application

It’s almost the deadline to submit your application for CCOP’s CORE Spring Internship! For anyone struggling to complete their application, or staring at a blank page and unsure of how to start, we have compiled a list of tips to write the best version of your application. We hope this list can help you write from the heart and show us who you are!

Advice on writing in general:

• Write, rewrite, revise! Good writing doesn’t mean getting it perfect on the first try, but using your best judgement and the resources available to you to eventually craft a solid piece of writing.

• Don’t start the day before it’s due: take time to clear your head and come back to the draft later. Ask trusted mentors (instructors, family, friends) with relevant experience to give feedback. However, sometimes life happens and you don’t have as much time as you would have liked. Even with less time, you still can (and should!) go through multiple drafts: you might just take an hour break between drafts instead of a week. 

• Answer the prompt. Your responses to application questions should indicate that you understand what the question is asking, not just writing what you think is most relevant.

• Make every sentence count. Word limits may seem daunting at first, but 300 words really isn’t that long! Try to be complete yet concise to ensure that you communicate everything the application is asking for.

• Be assertive. Students often feel embarrassed to describe themselves and their accomplishments in the written form. Re-read your draft and if you find yourself using limiting quantifiers, like saying you’re kind of/sort of good at something, or that you might have a skill, ask yourself if your writing is conveying the full truth about you. However, don’t exaggerate! 

• Do not use ChatGPT or other generative AI tools to generate your essay response. We want to learn about you and your scientific interests, which ChatGPT knows nothing about. For that reason, we disqualify applications that use AI to generate essay responses.

• Write in your voice. We want to get to know YOU, not what you think an application should say. Practice reading your sentences aloud: are those things you would say? How can you make your meaning clearer and more true to you and your experiences?

The CCOP internship application has three short essay questions. Below are tips on what we are looking for from each of your responses. Remember to answer every part of the question!

Research interest (300 words): What about scientific research interests you? What about your life or experience created this interest? What is an experience with science in your past that demonstrates this interest? What research topics are most interesting to you and why?

This question asks you to position yourself as a future scientist and identify ideas you want to explore further in the lab. While writing about science with limited scientific knowledge is daunting, passion and interest are far more important than experience for this application. We are looking for students with no prior experience, who are excited to learn, passionate about asking questions and able to articulate something of interest to them. Furthermore, every one of us had to answer questions like these when we were getting started in research, and often knew absolutely nothing about what our lab studied before we started doing experiments. There’s no one right answer: we just want to hear your genuine thoughts and experiences!

As researchers, we spend a lot of time learning about other people’s work: this allows us to find out what’s out there and identify what we’re interested in! If you sit down to write this application and don’t have any clue what your research interests might be, try thinking about topics you’ve heard or learned about that intrigued you. I remember being fascinated by anti-freeze proteins in my Bio I course, and I ended up majoring in biochemistry and researching protein properties. Are you drawn to human physiology, smaller organisms, or inert materials? What questions do you have about the world around you and the science behind how things work?

Writing about science is challenging at all stages of your career in different ways. For this application, don’t try to use science jargon or devote too much space to overly complex topics. Write in a way you are comfortable with and explain why you think whatever question is the most interesting and why you want to explore it. 

This question also asks about your relationship to science, and how your scientific interest developed. Make sure to be specific and add personal details to your scientific interests. For example, if you only say that you enjoyed watching documentaries growing up, that does not tell us what topics you were interested in or why you were interested in them.

Fit and preparedness (200 words): What are your long-term goals and how do you imagine the CCOP program will help you meet them? (It’s ok if you are undecided about long-term goals, discuss what you are considering). What makes you a prepared candidate for a research role? Why is now a good time for you to do an internship?

This question provides an opportunity to discuss your future aspirations and reflect on how this internship could shape your next steps in life. But what if you’re figuring things out as they come? Don’t worry: for this program, it’s completely ok to not know exactly what you want to do in the future! Think about your different goals for the next year or so. How can CCOP help you advance those goals? How might participating in CCOP help you figure out new goals for yourself, or work toward a bigger project in your life?

Concerning preparedness, this question also requires you to think about how your skills from previous work, coursework, and extracurricular experiences have prepared you for research. Show us how you have explored your scientific interests in the past and that these experiences have informed your decision to explore scientific research. This is another instance where having an idea of what research looks like will help you identify useful traits for the lab that you already possess and make you a great candidate!

Furthermore, on the more practical side of things: what about this upcoming quarter makes it “the right time” for you to do this internship? Will you be able to balance the internship alongside classes and other responsibilities? From personal experience, I’ve tried to be involved in many things that I simply did not have enough time for, and that ended up being a problem for me as well as others. If you really want to intern, but this quarter isn’t the right time, you can always wait and apply for a future session.

Personal strengths: independence, reliability, teamwork (300 words): Discuss a time or times when you have shown responsibility, independence, solved a challenging problem, or helped others. What did you learn or gain from that experience, and how does that demonstrate your strengths?

This question requires you to reflect on your character and experiences, and show us personal and interpersonal qualities of yours that would be useful in a lab setting. Research, like any job, requires good communication and interpersonal skills. We also conduct many, many experiments that don’t work, which means we might feel discouraged but need to keep showing up and doing the work. In recounting an experience where you demonstrated personal strengths, show us that you have gained the maturity to navigate the challenging situations that may arise in the lab.

Another important lab skill is being able to work independently. While lab mentors will show you how to do experiments and guide you through analysis and crafting presentation slides, you will eventually work mostly on your own. Show us that you can work independently and have taken initiative in your coursework and other endeavors.

In the lab, the way that we learn from each other is through mentorship from senior members. You will spend a lot of time with your mentor, and doing your part to maintain a good working relationship is very important to the success of your internship. Show us that you are mindful of the people around you, and that you are motivated to make connections that will help strengthen your research knowledge.

Next time you sit down to write, don’t forget to revise, seek feedback, and to be yourself. If you don’t have access to outside feedback, consider using these tips to revise your own application and make sure that you answered every aspect of the questions. We look forward to reading your application!

-- Lilli