"The key is to make a project that they can really handle," says Professor of Physics Gerald Gabrielse. "You have to be able to structure [the internship] in a way that everyone comes out fulfilled."

"[Feldstein] has been really good in suggesting directions for me to work in that would be interesting and challenging," Kolko says. "The experience wouldn't have been half as good if I had been all on my own working in a library," he adds.

Although professors may agree to supervise and instruct a summer intern, students are usually not highly qualified, and are seldom direct assistants to their "mentors."

Kolko says he actually sees Feldstein for only one hour a week. One research assistant, Mark J. Schnitzer '92, says he is fortunate enough to have weekly seminars with his professor. But most acknowledge that this is not the norm.

"I see him and we talk and stuff," Goodarzi says of Ambros. "I'm not working directly with him, but it's still the closest I've gotten to a Harvard professor."

Not Making Coffee

Like Goodarzi and Kolko, Akila Viswanathan '91 says her research job is "definitely not on the coffee-making side." A biological anthropology concentrator, the senior spends her time in the lab working on her thesis with Maryellen Ruvalo, a research associate in population genetics in the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Her work focuses on genetic variability in chimpanzees.

Eva M. Silverstein '92 does research in quantum mechanical systems with Arthur M. Jaffe, professor of mathematics and theoretical science. Jaffe say he was pleasantly surprised how much he learned from working with Silverstein.

"This is the first time I've had a student during the summer," Jaffe. "We interact very much as if she were a graduate student and not an undergraduate."

"I think it's pretty unusual for an undergraduate in a theoretical subject to get to the research boundaries, and we've been able to do that to some extent," Jaffe says. "That's what makes it so exciting."

Gabrielse agrees, saying that a well-planned internship can be beneficial for both student and professor. "I think it's fun, and some of them make really good contributions," Gabrielse says of working with undergraduates over the summer.

Gabrielse says he usually takes on three or four undergraduate assistants every summer. In the past, he has even written papers with them. "And if they contribute in some reasonable way, sure, I put their name on it," he says.

Schnitzer is one research intern who has had that rare opportunity to co-author a paper with a professor. The paper--of which Schnitzer was the principal author--has already been accepted for publication.

Many undergraduate research assistants echo Kolko's sentiments that the professors who employ them have tried hard to make the experience worthwhile.

Dina Abu-Ghaidi '91, a research intern for Harvard Medical School Assistant Professor of Neurobiology Kathleen M. Buckley, says Buckley is "extremely concerned with teaching me techniques in neurobiology and biochemistry, and not in having me there just to wash the equipment."