UNIQUE FEATURES OF OAK CREST'S REU PROGRAM

At Oak Crest, faculty members dedicate their time solely to conducting research and to advising students. Faculty do not teach formal classes, nor do they rely on graduate students to do their mentoring for them.  As a result, the student who does research at Oak Crest benefits from close intellectual interaction directly with faculty members as they pursue research goals together in the laboratory. Many projects are interdisciplinary, allowing the student to approach the research question from more than one point of view and collaborate with multiple faculty members on a single project.

Oak Crest’s REU program is the only one in the nation whose students are comprised entirely of local community college students, rather than of undergraduates from four-year universities. Although other REU programs require a full-time commitment over the summer, ours is a year-round program with both full-time and part-time options .

Because Oak Crest’s non-REU programs include a combination of high school, community college, and four-year university students, participants in Oak Crest’s REU program also have the unique opportunity to interact with students from a variety of local home institutions on a day-to-day basis.