Activities
The ten-week series runs from early June to early August. (2021: Tuesday June 1st through Friday August 6th). As we adapt our site to a virtual experience we will likely have some adjustments.
Seminars, Trainings, and Talks
- Data Mining Tutorials: these talks focus on the basic concepts and goals of data mining, introducing tools and techniques that will be useful in students' projects.
- Visualization Tutorial: this talk introduces ideas and best practices in visualizing data. These concepts will be useful in students' eventual research artifacts.
- Colloquia: multiple guest presentations by experts discussing their current work.
- Reading Papers: A talk on how to read through research papers and critique them. This also includes understanding how, and why, we cite sources.
- What does it mean to pursue an unanswered question? Students begin their summer with a discussion on the broader activity of scholarly inquiry.
- Research Ethics: this talk will cover common questions and concerns about performing research ethically
- How to Present Your Research: this talk will cover the basics of giving a presentation, including making a poster for poster sessions. Plans include time to play with templates and get hands-on experience.
- Career Preparation: General career preparation discussion.
Blogs
Over the summer, all participants maintain blogs, tracking their experience and their research over the summer.
Campus Resources
- OSCAR (The Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, and Research) is a great resource for helping students reach their potential. We will work with them throughout the summer, finding many opportunities on campus.
- The MIX is Mason's own Maker Space, where you can collaborate and work on projects together. The second floor here is also a great place for group meetups.
- One Button Studio is a simple station to record a brief descriptive talk, and get a video file of it placed on a USB drive. Great for creating short videos.
Activities
The summer won't be all work and no play - with Washington, D.C. easily accessible for evening activities, and the greater region offering many exciting options, you will have plenty to keep yourself occupied after the day's work is done! Here is a mix of things both REU-oriented and region-oriented that are planned or available this summer.
- Online Meet-and-Greet Orientation (get to know each other before you arrive)
- Weekly Donuts/Bagels/Fruit gathering
- Hiking in the region (Potomac, Shenandoah, etc)
- National Museums (free!)
- Hackathon Day
- Farewell Cook-out