Wesleyan Summer Spotlights: Social Science Labs and Research

[Introductions] Ladd Flock: Hi everyone, welcome and thanks for being here tonight — and for those joining from the other side of the world, thank you for this early morning. This event is part of the Wesleyan Summer Spotlights, a series of short panels where students share what they did over the summer and what they learned along the way. Please use the Q&A to submit questions anytime — we'll have the last 15 minutes open for strong Q&A. I want each panelist to introduce themselves, share their background and campus involvement, and talk a bit about how they organized their search for a summer research experience or internship. Kate Borows-Lai: Hi everyone, I'm Kate, a senior and Psychology major. I work on our campus farm and have been part of a faculty research lab. Last summer I had a horticultural therapy internship at NYU Langone Hospital. I got it through a cold email to the leader of that program — I made a spreadsheet of all the opportunities I found compelling and did a lot of emailing. I highly recommend cold emailing. Rena Chen: Hi everyone, I'm Rena, a senior majoring in Psychology and the College of Social Studies. I've been involved in a couple of psych labs to get exposure to both clinical and social aspects of the field. This past summer I was a communications research intern for the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), a video game trade association. I found ESA the semester before through a class research project, which let me submit an early application. Elizabeth Immel: Hi everyone, I'm Elizabeth, a senior double majoring in Psychology and Government. I'm captain of the varsity swim-dive team, a former orientation leader, and last spring was a TA for a psychology course. My summer internship was as a digital media marketing and research intern for High Desert Health — a company run by a Wesleyan alum from 1990 who specifically seeks out Wesleyan students. I found it on Handshake. Chloe Pacetti: Hi everyone, I'm Chloe, a Psychology major and Data Analysis minor. I'm a lab manager for the Sexuality and Wellbeing Lab, played Wesleyan's women's ultimate frisbee, and work at Red and Black. I cast a wide net in my job search — cold emails, Handshake, LinkedIn — but ultimately landed my internship through a family connection that put me in touch with the principal investigator of Columbia's Neurotechnology Center. I was a research assistant there under Dr. Rafael Yuste. Mia Kogan-Spivack: Hi, I'm Mia, a senior and Neuroscience major. I do research in Wesleyan's Schizophrenia Cognition Lab with Dr. Kurtz, peer tutor in biology, chemistry, and Spanish, and have CA'd for several classes. Last summer I was a volunteer community health worker for Massachusetts General Hospital's Community Care Van program — providing free mobile healthcare to underserved communities. I found the connection through a woman I had tutored online during the pandemic whose kids I tutored — she turns out to run the program. I was also studying for the MCAT at the same time. [Tips for Being a Strong Applicant] Ladd Flock: What are some behind-the-scenes tips and advice for students preparing to be strong applicants — things you wish you'd known as a freshman or sophomore, or things that really paid off? Kate Borows-Lai: Research the fields and companies you're interested in deeply before you reach out. When I cold emailed the director of the horticultural therapy program, I referenced her past work, the program's history, and the field itself. Specificity shows genuine interest. Knowing the field you're going into — even something niche like horticultural therapy — matters. Rena Chen: At Wesleyan, professors often give open-ended finals that you can connect to almost any theme. If you're interested in a particular field, you can often adapt those topics to your coursework and list that project on your resume. It gives you something concrete to discuss with employers and a conversation point in interviews. Elizabeth Immel: I didn't realize how important networking is until I started applying. The reality is that applications can disappear without being seen at all. Having a connection — someone who can flag your application or introduce you to a hiring manager — makes a real difference. If you don't have a direct connection, find someone who already works at the company you're targeting and try to reach out. Mia Kogan-Spivack: The Wesleyan alumni network is incredibly tight if you know how to use it. I cold email or cold LinkedIn connect with Wesleyan alums and my hit rate is genuinely good — people respond and want to help. One tactical tip: in your subject line, say 'Wesleyan student' explicitly. If someone sees 'Wesleyan student seeks advice' versus just 'undergraduate,' the former is far more likely to get a reply. Chloe Pacetti: Cold emails can never hurt if you're intentional about them. Don't copy-paste a generic message — personalize it, show you've done your research, and make it feel like you're reaching out to this person specifically. The summer before this one, I sent a cold email to a professor and secured an internship with no prior connection. [Projects and Experiences That Opened Doors] Ladd Flock: What did you do this summer that solidified an interest or gave you something meaningful to talk about? Elizabeth Immel: Part of my job was editing blog posts, social media content, and podcast episodes. Some of the podcast guests had significant platforms — and through editing an hour of their content and getting their direct contact info, I walked away with a set of real connections in my field of interest. You might not know going in who you're going to meet, but be prepared to make the most of unexpected connections. Chloe Pacetti: The core of my internship was writing mini-essays on mental augmentation — technologies designed to enhance cognitive capacity — covering military, consumer, and medical applications. By the end of the summer I had written over 100 pages. My PI then asked if I wanted to co-author a paper with him, which is now under review for publication. Scientific writing is a skill I'll carry everywhere, and getting your name on a paper as an undergrad is a worthwhile goal. Rena Chen: ESA had a hybrid schedule, leaving me with two days a week without assigned tasks. Rather than let that time go unused, I proposed creating an intern reflection video — I rallied the other interns, recorded their experiences, edited the whole thing myself, and presented it to my supervisor as a finished product. Sections of it are now being considered for their website. Taking initiative when you don't have assigned work is one of the most effective ways to show you're proactive and independent. Kate Borows-Lai: Horticultural therapy is using nature-based activities — usually planting — to help patients reach psychological or physical healing goals. NYU Langone has had it since the 1970s, originally for aphasia patients. I shadowed practitioners at two hospital locations across five different units. Because of my farm experience at Wesleyan, I brought something the clinical staff didn't have — practical farming knowledge. We created a community garden database together that they now give to outpatient clients. The internship also reoriented my career thinking: I now want to pursue social work and think about how nature functions as a social determinant of health. Mia Kogan-Spivack: I did community health work with the MGH Community Care Van — social determinants of health screenings, patient intake, and mobile care in underserved communities. It strengthened my commitment to being patient-facing as a physician and got me thinking seriously about what kind of medicine I want to practice. [Housing, Funding, and Logistics] Ladd Flock: Any insight into housing, funding, or logistics — things your friends or roommates had to figure out to make it work? Chloe Pacetti: Friends who had internships in New York or D.C. but didn't live there often rented dorms from universities — NYU and GW both have summer dorm availability. I lived in Brooklyn and commuted about an hour each way to Columbia on the Upper West Side. The summer grant covered transportation, food, and work clothes, which made it manageable. Elizabeth Immel: A lot of my peers found housing by connecting through mutual friends — 'I have a friend of a friend working near you, want to find a place together?' Being comfortable living with someone you don't know well can take the pressure off finding a solution entirely on your own. Kate Borows-Lai: The summer grant isn't the only funding available through Wesleyan. I received a COE grant, even though I lived at home. There's also a Political Engagement Fund. Ask your professors what funding might intersect with your specific project — they often know about sources that aren't widely advertised. Rena Chen: For D.C. specifically: university dorm spots fill up fast. If you get an offer late, the only options left can be expensive. Plan for housing as early as possible, even before you're certain of the internship. [Advice for Freshmen and Sophomores] Ladd Flock: What do you wish you had known as a freshman or sophomore? What would you tell someone entering their spring semester right now? Elizabeth Immel: Build your resume from small things as well as big ones. Something you do for a weekend, an event you attend, a panel you speak on — if it seems small, it can still be a bullet point. That's how a deep and varied resume gets built. You don't need year-long commitments for everything on it. Mia Kogan-Spivack: As a freshman, it's appropriate to keep high school experiences on your resume. After your freshman summer, start removing things from before junior year of high school. Don't be too quick to strip it — interviewers understand you've only had a year or two to build college experience. Kate Borows-Lai: Talk to professors more than I did early on. I assumed professors were purely academic and couldn't help with career thinking. I was wrong — they've had rich, diverse careers outside academia, and they know people. Ask them what career options look like in their field. Chloe Pacetti: Whatever you end up with for the summer, even if it wasn't your first choice — those skills are transferable. Every experience paves the way for the next one, and you can spin it in a way that connects to what's ahead. Elizabeth Immel: It's never really too late. At a school like Wesleyan where everyone seems so on top of everything, it's easy to feel behind. But everyone has their own pace, and there are always opportunities out there. Don't get discouraged. [Defining Experiences at Wesleyan] Ladd Flock: You're all seniors now. What's been the best or most defining experience at Wesleyan — something that really shapes who you are as a professional? Mia Kogan-Spivack: My most honest answer isn't career-adjacent: I do something I love that has nothing to do with medicine. I was asked about it in an interview just days ago and it became one of the most engaging parts of the conversation. People want to see that you're a whole person — that your life isn't entirely career-oriented. Passion for anything comes through, and it draws people in. Chloe Pacetti: Being a teaching assistant was unexpectedly formative. I'm not going into academia, but the experience of helping other students understand material deeply shaped how I think about learning — and it directly informs how I manage the three research assistants I oversee in the psych lab now. Elizabeth Immel: The Take Flight program through the swim team — Wesleyan's version of the Radical Hope program for incoming first-year student-athletes. I've been a guide for three years, facilitating students through their first weeks of college, discussing mental health and sport and student life. It's shown me how much overlap there is between athletics and psychology. Kate Borows-Lai: The farm, without question. The actual work is meaningful to me, but even more so is the community I've built there and the progression from student to teacher — from learning how things work to teaching others, and eventually taking on administrative and leadership roles. Rena Chen: My involvement in religious communities on campus has been quietly formative. I'm a leader for the Wesleyan Christian Fellowship and also part of Wesleyan's Interfaith Literacy and Diversity program — weekly conversations with people from different religious backgrounds about lived experience, how they see the world, and what matters to them. That exposure to genuine difference has shaped how I communicate across backgrounds, which turns out to be relevant everywhere.