For several summers, IML has hired qualified graduate students to conduct projects for talented University High School (Uni High) students that are similar in nature to the semester-long projects IML provides to undergraduate students. Each summer that funding and other resources allow, we make these positions available to graduate students, to help them gain paid teaching and research experience.
Job details for Summer 2023
In Summer 2023, we will run up to three Uni High projects. We are searching for graduate students interested in serving as team leaders on these projects. More details about graduate student leader positions are as follows:
- We expect graduate students to work for a total of 80 hours, and hope to pay each student $2,200.
- At least 36 of the 80 hours should involve direct work with Uni High students.
- We anticipate that the graduate student will use around half of the remaining 44 hours for preparations before the project begins—in particular, developing the instructional material for the first week of the project and the general outline of the research project.
- The graduate students should use the remaining 22 hours to prepare for the individual meetings throughout the project.
- Projects will run for 4 weeks between May 29 and June 30, and activities will be held in person.
- We expect teams to meet in person three times a week (likely Monday-Wednesday-Friday) for three hours each meeting (for example, 9am-12pm).
- The day-to-day activities of each project, as well as the intellectual content, will developed by the graduate student team leader.
- The level of difficulty of these projects should roughly be on the level of regular beginner-level IGL projects or slightly below, as we don’t expect the high school student to have taken Calculus III.
- We expect that during the first week the graduate team leader gives a crash course on the material the students need to know in order to carry out the research project. During the off-days in the first week, the students are expected to solve homework problems in order to fully grasp the new material. Weeks 2–4 would then be used to carry out the actual research project (this doesn’t have to be original research, but should have clear project character, rather than lecture or homework character).
- It is our expectation that similar to the usual IGL projects, the students would work on the projects not only during the time they meet with the graduate team leader, but also on the days between these meetings.
Visit our project archive for to see previous projects that we have conducted. The I-STEM website also contains some detailed reports from Summer 2020 projects.
How to apply
The IGL is running multiple research groups in the Summer 2023 and is searching for graduate students willing to serve as team leaders. To be considered for a position, please fill out the application form.
We will start reviewing applications in early April, but we will keep the application open until all positions are filled.
For more information, please contact IML leadership at math-igl@illinois.edu.