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Info for Internship, Work Term and Research Assistant Applicants in Physics

All appointments for internships, work terms and research assistant temporary positions are made by individual faculty members and therefore enquiries should be directed to faculty members whose research area corresponds with your interests. It is not a good idea to send a general enquiry to a large number of faculty members. It is much better to select specific faculty members who are working in your research area.

The following information is of great value to our Faculty when evaluating applications, so please include it in any requests:

  1. Reason for the request (e.g. part of an undergraduate degree program)
  2. Desired start and end dates
  3. Payment conditions (i.e. who is paying for this internship? Is the faculty member expected to pay, or is the candidate funded from their home institution? If the faculty member is asked to contribute, how much remuneration is expected?)
  4. What are the requirements for the internship/work term, etc. (Is a final report required? Does the faculty member have to assign a grade? What kind of work is expected/desired?)
  5. What is your academic standing? (e.g. grade-point average)
  6. What specific skills to you have that you think would be useful in your selected research area? (e.g. courses taken, specific computer/laboratory/workshop skills)
  7. Can you give the names of any people who can act as referees? (e.g. supervisors of previous internships, etc.)
  8. What arrangements are made for insurance and the like?
  9. Why are you writing to this particular Faculty member?

There are many requests and faculty members can respond only to a very small number of them. Individual faculty members have to make their decisions based on their schedules, the work going on in their groups and their financial situation and therefore may not be in a position to respond positively to your request.