Undergraduate Research and Internships
Experiential Learning in Plant Biology
Conducting research and/or internships are powerful ways to extend your education beyond the classroom and gain critical skills that can give you a significant advantage in your profession. All undergraduate majors in the Department of Plant Biology are required to complete at least three credits of experiential learning. Credits for these experiences can be earned as either PLB 498: Undergraduate Research or PLB 495: Internship in Plant Biology. You do not have to complete both.
PLB 498: Undergraduate Research
PLB 498 (research) is usually assigned to experiences in which you work with a faculty member, postdoctoral researcher, or graduate student to conduct work that generates new knowledge. Research is about inquiry and discovery; it builds upon what we know to explore new questions for which we don’t know the answer. Students who take PLB 498 most often work in the research labs of MSU faculty, but those faculty do not need to be within the Department of Plant Biology. In some cases, students have worked in faculty labs at non-MSU institutions, though this is somewhat rare.
PLB 495: Internship in Plant Biology
PLB 495 (internship) is assigned to experiences in which you work with a supervisor to carry out a set of pre-defined responsibilities that contribute to an existing organization. Internships are focused on learning knowledge and skills relevant to your career interests. Internships are most often conducted with businesses, organizations, and programs, and may or may not be affiliated with MSU. Examples of internships include working with for-profit industries, non-profit organizations, governmental agencies, or student or professional organizations or administrative units.
How do I enroll in PLB 495 or 498? (Application and Proposal Guidelines)
You cannot enroll yourselves directly in 495 or 498. Instead, the process involves:
- Application for PLB 495/498. The application provides an overview of your planned project, contact information for yourself and your mentor, and lets us know when you want to receive the credits. If you choose to do research or internship during summer, you may defer your credits until the following fall. In some cases, this may be preferred based on your financial aid.
- Proposal. The proposal describes some of the specifics of your intended work and aims to
build consensus between you and your mentor about what you will be working on and
why. In addition, the proposal should clarify the process for evaluation and submission
of a final grade.
Please consult the appropriate proposal guidelines for each type of experiential learning: - Approval. The Undergraduate Director will review and approve all project applications and proposals for both PLB 495 and 498. In some cases, the director may wish to consult with the student and/or mentor if there are questions about proposed work or evaluation procedures.
- Enrollment. Once a project is approved, the Academic Program Coordinator (Sara Kraeuter) will enroll you in the course. You will receive confirmation once the process is complete and the course will then appear in your class schedule.
What you need to know:
Below are some common questions students ask about research and internships, the PLB 495/498 requirement, and how to get started with finding opportunities.
PLB 495: Internship in Plant Biology and PLB 498: Undergraduate Research are offered as alternatives for students pursuing slightly different plans after graduation. In some cases, it may be difficult to make a distinction between what is ‘research’ and what is an ‘internship’ since there can be considerable overlap. However, the guidelines above can help in making this distinction.
Although there isn’t a specific year or semester in which you must take PLB 495/498, most students enroll in their sophomore or junior years. If a research or internship opportunity becomes available to you as a freshman, we encourage you to take advantage of it – it's great to build your skill set early! However, we would not recommend taking PLB 498/495 credits as a freshman. Most students who start research or internships early will continue in subsequent years, so the credits can wait.
Also, whatever you choose as your 498/495 experience will be the basis of your project in PLB 499: Senior Capstone (taken in the spring of your graduating year) so it’s best to take the credits a little closer to your senior year.
PLB 499 is the Senior Capstone for all Plant Biology majors (Plant Bio and Environment Science/Plant Bio) and should be taken in the spring of your graduating year. Although the course can vary depending on instructor, in its current form, students will work with data and materials they acquired through their PLB 498/495 experience to build scientific presentations they will present at MSU's UURAF in April of each year. Therefore, PLB 498/495 are considered prerequisites for PLB 499.
Most students will take PLB 499 in the spring semester just before they graduate in May. If you plan for a December graduation, you should take PLB 499 in spring of the same calendar year (i.e., if you are graduating in December 2025, take PLB 499 in spring 2025).
Absolutely! The Plant Biology and Plant Biology/Environmental Sciences majors require a minimum of 3 credits of either research (PLB 498) or internship (PLB 495), but you may conduct as much research or internship as you wish and as early as you wish.
We strongly encourage early experiences! Often, research/internship mentors prefer someone that will be available for multiple
years as they can more fully develop their expertise over a longer period of time.
Early participation also increases the chances that you can contribute to authorship
on a published paper or to contribute meaningful change in an organization. All in
all, these early experiences tend to create more opportunities as you move forward.
No. There are no prerequisites for PLB 498 or 495, but most students will wait until their sophomore or junior years to enroll.
Applications and proposals must be approved BEFORE you can be enrolled and before you begin the project for which you will be earning credits. To receive PLB 495 or 498 credit, you must be enrolled prior to the open add deadline in the semester in which you wish to enroll. Please plan for 3-5 business days between submission of your application and enrollment in the course.
PLB 498 and PLB 495 are not courses that you have to attend, they are the credit you receive for your research or internship experience. This means you have a lot of flexibility in terms of which semester you add the credit to.
If you do research or an internship during summer, you may defer enrolling for credits until the following academic year. We try to accommodate students’ financial aid situation, and in many cases, deferring until Fall or Spring will allow you to get the credits covered under Flat Rate tuition (12 – 18 credits are the same tuition price). If you have any questions regarding which semester would be best to add the credit to please contact your PLB Undergraduate Advisor.
It depends. In some cases, students may already be working as an intern or in a research lab and decide that they would like to continue their work as part of PLB 495 or 498 – this is perfectly acceptable. The proposal and application should then reflect what the nature of the work will be from that point forward. In other words, your proposal should include your prior work as background/context for the work you plan to do.
However, we cannot retrospectively grant PLB 495/498 credit for work you previously completed. A key part of the process is writing a proposal that reflects your work plan and specifies a process for evaluation. This cannot be done if the work has already been completed and the research/internship mentor no longer has a relationship with you.
Yes! Many research opportunities and internships are paid experiences and receiving pay does not prevent you from earning course credit (e.g., PLB 498/495).
There is a growing body of research that shows that test scores and GPAs do not predict success in research or other STEM professions. You might be surprised to see the transcripts of many of our very own faculty.
Mentors want undergraduates that are reliable, thoughtful, creative, and who work well with teams. Many other skills are unexpectedly transferrable to the work you might encounter as a researcher or intern. Can you install car stereos? Are you an avid crafter? Have you worked as a lifeguard? Successful undergraduates come with a wide range of experience, but the most important characteristic is to be enthusiastic about science and discovery!
Finding Research and Internship Opportunities
Research
Finding opportunities to do research or internships can be challenging – and sometimes frustrating. However, building your network, talking to faculty and students, and knowing your interests will go far in getting you on the right path quickly. Below, we offer some resources and suggestions to help you get started and that have proved useful for previous Plant Bio students. In addition, we provide a few examples of research and internships that Plant Bio students have completed to help illustrate the wide range of possibilities that can be explored.
Reach out to faculty
- One of the most common ways that students find research opportunities is by reaching
out to faculty directly via email. Each department has a website where you can find
a list of faculty members and descriptions of their research. Find one or more faculty
members whose research interests you and send an email to inquire about opportunities.
Examples of well-constructed emails can be found here.
- Plant Biology faculty directory
- You can also check research pages for faculty in other departments, such as Chemistry; Microbiology; Horticulture; Plant, Soil, and Microbial Sciences; Pharmacology & Toxicology; Integrative Biology, and Biosystems Engineering.
- See this document for step-by-step guidance on finding an undergraduate research position.
Plant Biology Undergraduate Research Directory
- We maintain a directory of undergraduate researchers who are looking for or currently involved in research. The directory is available for faculty to consult when they have an opening in their labs.
Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU)
- The Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program supports active research
participation by undergraduates in any of the areas of research funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
- Plant Genomics at MSU offers an REU Program that provides high quality research and training experiences for undergraduates interested in biology, biochemistry, biotechnology, chemistry, bioinformatics, and computational sciences.
- National REU Sites: Biological Sciences
Kellogg Biological Station Undergraduate Research Apprenticeships (URA)
- KBS offers an Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship (URA) Program featuring paid research positions with outstanding faculty, postdocs and graduate students.
- URA positions are part-time (research schedule is dependent on your KBS summer course schedule), and geared for undergraduate and community college transfer students with little to no previous research experience. The URA position includes stipend, lodging, and grocery stipend for the 10-week summer experience.
Handshake
- Some paid and unpaid research positions are also listed on Handshake. Go to http://careernetwork.msu.edu/ and click on “Handshake” on the upper right corner of the page under Handshake. For on-campus research, try keyword search “research” and click “On Campus Student Employment” under Job Type.
Additional Research Resources at MSU
Evaluating the effects of climate change-inspired heat waves on the coevolutionary relationship between Asclepias syriaca and Danaus plexippus (Wetzel lab).
Effect of fungal and bacterial inoculation on increasing tensile strength and lifespan of bio-composite and wood materials (Bonito lab).
The effects of environmental conditions on the growth of Manoomin (Zizania aquatica) at the Corey Marsh Ecological Research Center.
The impact of plant growth-promoting bacteria on stress in Physcomitrella patens (Hamberger lab).
The effects of gibberellic acid and herbivory on resource allocation to floral traits in Raphanus raphanistrum (Conner lab).
Photosynthetic performance of cowpea plants under photorespiratory conditions (Hu lab).
Weather effects on blueberry pollination (Issacs lab).
Identifying important genes for fitness in high temperatures (Shiu lab).
Aligning plant and frugivore traits: Improving biodiversity conservation (Zarnetske lab).
Variation in phenotypic traits with latitude within the coastal perennial ecotype of Minimulus guttatus (Lowry lab).
Internship
An internship is a supervised experience that will help develop knowledge and skills related to your area of study and/or career interests.
Kellogg Biological Station Internships
- Interns play a valuable role in the development and implementation of initiatives vital to the mission of KBS. The KBS Internship Program provides part-time (20+ hrs/week) professional experiences for students in a wide range of disciplines across KBS.
W.J. Beal Botanical Garden & Campus Arboretum Beal Scholars Internship Program
- The Beal Scholars Internship Program is a mentored experience for MSU undergraduate students from any discipline to gain professional experience in botanical garden operations and project management.
Additional Internship Opportunities at MSU and Beyond:
Visitor Experience Intern at Kellogg Bird Sanctuary
Ferry Curation Intern at the Cleveland Botanical Garden
Beal Scholar Internship at the W.J. Beal Botanical Garden
Laboratory Assistant at Plant Sciences, Inc. in Watsonville, CA
Plant ID Technician in the Walters Lab at MSU
Soil Conservationist Trainee at USDA-NRCS
If you have additional questions or need further clarification about any of the information above, please contact the PLB Undergraduate Advisor, Riley Fanning or the PLB Undergraduate Director, Dr. Tammy Long.