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Enhancing the educational experience of summer interns through a laboratory techniques bootcamp

Underrepresented college students’ interest in STEM fields poses challenges, the most critical of which is having students stay the science course beyond their sophomore year until graduation. The Penn State College of Medicine provides annual summer internship opportunities for students interested in medicine and science careers through pipeline programs. One of the most challenging aspects for incoming summer students, particularly those coming from minority‐serving institutions, is their lack of hands‐on experience and knowledge of common laboratory methods and basic research techniques. To overcome these difficulties, we dedicated the summer programs’ first full week to introducing students to contemporary technologies, which would both improve their knowledge base and simultaneously impart instruction in techniques they may be required to perform in their laboratories. The goal of the course was to smooth the transition of summer students into their summer research labs and enhance student preparation and research productivity. The technologies were broad in scope and were explored five hours a day over the first four days of the summer program. Protocols were disseminated electronically, and instruction was provided by junior faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students, some of which also served as junior mentors for the students. The nature of the Bootcamp's capstone experience provided available time to step outside of the laboratory and learn valuable concepts and common laboratory practices like buffer preparation, calculations, and general good laboratory practices. The summer bootcamp experience terminated with a student lunchtime get‐together in which techniques were revisited, technical problems were dissected, data were analyzed, and students presented and discussed the results of their mini‐experiments. Overall, the student's feedback was positive and the course was well‐received by both students and research faculty. The success of the program resulted in its extension to all incoming students in its third year.