VIPs are boats that don't float without undergraduate researchers. By design, they uniquely offer undergraduates both an on-ramp into academic research and opportunity for long-term participation on a single project.
Questions often linger about how VIPs differ from other research team organizations, what is the nature of associated coursework, how are projects structured, and what is the process of joining a team. If you (or a friend!) have any of these questions, you've come to the right place.
How do VIPs VIP.
In its simplest explanation, VIP is an organizational model where faculty embed undergraduates in their research. VIPs offer opportunities for undergraduates to engage in real-world, interdisciplinary research. This can both aid in an individual's academic development and offer an opportunity for discernment of future plans.
VIPs offer undergraduate researchers the opportunity to join a team at the base level, rise through the ranks, and receive course credit (and hopefully pay!) along the way! Perhaps the best way to show this is by illustration. A typical biography of a fictional undergraduate VIP team member could be written as roughly the following:
An individual applies to join a VIP team. They are accepted to join and is onboarded onto the team at the ground level by a more senior colleague (oftentimes an undergraduate who has been on the team for a number of years). New team members attend team meetings, enroll in a research course, maybe get a little money put in their pocket, and are assigned a range of entry-level tasks. Overtime, individuals continue to receive academic course credit, learn more about academic research, and increasingly hone their technical chops as they are given more and more responsibility. Overtime individuals become increasingly more comfortable with the team and the processes of doing research. Eventually, this once fledgling researcher becomes an increasingly accomplished team member responsible for onboarding folks in the place they once were.
Unique Features of a VIP
VIPs are remarkably intuitive in their organization. This is, perhaps, their most distinctive feature. VIPs offer a progressive division of labor that includes built-in leadership opportunities for undergraduate researchers.
Another unique feature of a VIP is their holistic nature. In its most robust instantiations, VIPs can encompass nearly every facet of an undergraduate's academic life - employment, coursework, apprenticeship, and professional discernment. Participation on a team can offer course credit and faculty mentorship while simultaneously preparing individuals for future careers in academia, industry, or other professional fields requiring advanced research skills.
VIP Coursework. Or, research can be a curriculum thing too.
By design, VIPs provide a structured and immersive experience that can go beyond traditional classroom learning. In fact, VIPs frequently offer undergraduate researchers the opportunity to receive course credit while participating on a team. This combination of research practice and course credit stands to empower individuals by allowing them an opportunity to make meaningful contributions to research.
VIP associated coursework can be housed within an academic department as either a research course or a course specifically designated VIP. The number of credit hours an individual receives per semester can vary (typically ranging from 1-4).
At Rice, if an individual is on a team hosted by a department andor academic unit that doesn't offer a VIP-related research course, OURI offers sections of UNIV 290 and 390. In UNIV 290 and 390 sections enrollment, instruction, requirements, management, and grading are left entirely to the discretion of the individual VIP teams.
After joining a VIP team, individuals should consult with their team leaders re: course enrollment, logistics, and options.
Team Structure/Organization
As the name suggests, VIPs are by design and operation hierarchical. The project's scope and research agenda is set by the team's faculty lead(s). Working closely with faculty leads may be postdoctoral fellows and graduate students. Next to them in the organizational chart are undergraduate researchers.
VIPs offers researchers of all rank the possibility of starting at an entry level and matriculating through the ranks to positions of great acumen and responsibility. Graduate students deeper into the PhD game mentor those still in the early days of their research journey. As an individual gets longer in the VIP tooth, they are tasked with greater mentoring, growing leadership responsibilities, and more involved assignments related to the research process.
How to Join a Team
Often times the hardest part of participating on an a team is figuring how, when, and where to jump in. Thankfully, at least at Rice, the steps to join a VIP team are straightforwardly simple. All that one needs to do is determine the range of one's academic interests, research active teams [Read: click this link and do some page hopping], contact faculty leads of potential interest, complete an application, join a team.