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MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
College of Natural Science
IRES:ASSURE

Student FAQ

Who is eligible to participate as a student on an IRES-ASSURE project?

Eligible students MUST be US citizens or permanent residents but do NOT need to be MSU students. However, qualifying students MUST be in the process of earning a Ph. D. degree in a STEM discipline. At beginning of the IRES program, student participants should have a minimum of 1 year remaining in their Ph.D. program before they are eligible to graduate.

Are non-MSU students eligible to apply?

Yes. IRES ASSURE is open to all U.S. graduate students, based in the US.

Do I need to speak A FOREIGN LANGUAGE to be eligible to apply?

No. If you are an English speaking student you will be placed with a mentor that can communicate in English. We ask that both mentors and their students be open to engagement with researchers from a different culture. The program provide does not provide any language training and we recommend that students do some self-learning about the culture.

Do I need to be enrolled for the semester to participate in this program?

No. This program does NOT offer course credit and does not require students to be enrolled for the semester. However students must still be in the process of earning their Ph.D. degree for the duration of the program.

Can student participants earn course credit for this research experience?

Maybe. This program does NOT offer course credit for participants. However, this does not stop your advisor from counting this experience as a research credit. However, the IRES ASSURE program will not be able to provide any documentation for the purpose of obtaining course credit.

How do I talk to my advisor the benefits of participating in this program?

The program offers students the following opportunities personal and research:

  • Promote and achieve your research goals;

  • Learn new computational skills and methods that could be useful to your research and your lab;

  • Understand how effective collaborations work and gain experience working in different STEM research environments;

  • Expand your professional network;

  • Build leadership and problem-solving skills needed to manage a team with diverse members;

  • Grow in awareness of how culture influences the practice of your discipline

The program offers U.S. mentors of eligible students the following opportunities:

  • Students are paid by the program to continue existing research. So advisors can save their research dollars.
  • You have the potential to earn research credits for the work you are doing, if your advisor so chooses.
  • If you are selected to participate and your advisor is mentoring you on the project, they will be eligible for a travel allowance (~$3K) to build this collaboration by visiting the international host while you are there.