Information for Students

Information for Students | Program Description and Requirements | Reporting Requirements | Progress Reports | Abstract | Final Report

Progress Reports

Students are required to submit detailed progress reports on the first business days of July and August. The purpose of the reports is to help you focus on the goals of your project and your progress toward those goals. The report also provides a basis for in-depth discussions with your mentor and/or co-mentor. We encourage you to use the reports as a tool. These reports might become parts of your final technical paper. We suggest that mentors use these reports to help students develop their technical writing skills.

Guidelines for each progress report are below. Mentors may have other suggestions and ideas for material that should be incorporated into these reports. The reports must be approved and signed by the mentor.

Information for the abstract can be found here.

Information for the final report can be found here.

Progress Report for July:

• Write in some detail the motivation for your project. It should include background and an overview of the ongoing work in the laboratory. You should include references.
• Discuss the problem you are working on and explain how it fits into the ongoing work. Explain your approach and outline the methods you expect to use.
• Discuss the progress you have made on your project, your goals for the next month, and the methods or approach you will use to reach your research goals.
• What are the challenges and problems you have met so far and what challenges and problems do you anticipate in the next month?
• What resources will you require?

Progress Report for August:

• Discuss in detail the work you have completed over the past month. (Describe your experiments, progress on data analysis, etc.) Include exact technical specifications and quantities and source or method of preparation for work you have done thus far. You should present the methods in chronological order if possible.
• Discuss the progress of your work so far. What observations have you made? Describe how your observations are (or are not) in line with what you expected.
• Describe any problems you have encountered. What was the source of the problem, and how have you worked (or how are you working) on solving the problem(s)?
• What are your research goals for the remainder of the project? Have these goals changed since you started working on your project?
• Describe the interaction between you and your mentor (and co-mentor, if applicable). Do you meet daily, weekly, seldom, as needed? Do you work mostly with a graduate student or postdoc?