High schoolers get hands-on college research experience and support system through STEM internship

Before she started her summer internship on the University of Chicago’s campus, Alexandra Raez knew she wanted to be an engineer but navigating the wide array of established and emerging engineering pathways, particularly as a low-income, first-generation student, felt daunting.

The six-week After School Matters STEM Lab summer research program for Chicago public high school students, led by the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering in partnership with After School Matters, paired Raez with rising fourth year PhD student Andrea Diaz as her mentor and offered hands-on research experience and college and career readiness support. By the time the internship was winding down, Raez was in the lab helping Diaz upcycle engineered plastic into membranes for redox flow batteries that could potentially support future power grids—and feeling empowered and supported herself.

“I don’t feel as scared [of going to college] anymore, as if everyone is going to be better than me. I feel like I genuinely can contribute to something really big, and I think I am capable of doing stuff that the people I look up to do,” Raez said. “Andrea has taught me not only about science but also about how to be more confident in myself and how to speak up and I think that’s been really great coming from another woman who’s in the field, so it’s been really inspiring to be working alongside her.”

Raez, who lives in the Gage Park neighborhood and attends Walter Payton College Prep, is one of 10 Chicago public high school students who took part in the STEM Lab this summer, working with 11 UChicago mentors across nine campus labs. The internship is designed to have high schoolers be part of authentic research projects and environments, and get insights into how science and engineering researchers work in an innovative, collaborative environment, as well as valuable experience for competitive college applications.

“It is an opportunity to step into the day-to-day life of a STEM researcher, to carry out a research project with the support of dedicated research mentors, a chance to develop professional skills like science communication and networking, and an opportunity to immerse high schoolers in authentic research spaces at UChicago,” Laura Rico-Beck, Assistant Dean of Education and Outreach at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, says.

For Raez, who had never been on a college campus prior to her internship, the program exposed her to areas of research and engineering careers she hadn’t previously considered while also connecting her to a new network of academic and professional contacts, especially the powerful advocate she found in Diaz. Diaz, too, found the experience not only personally meaningful, but professionally beneficial.

“Alexandra is very inquisitive, so it’s been perfect timing. Having an extra set of eyes and ears seeing everything I do has allowed me to see my research from a different lens,” Diaz said. “It allows me to format my thoughts a lot better and think about the way I want to talk about my research, it’s been great in that sense in that it not only helps her have an opportunity but also really helps me develop as a researcher.”

Diaz, who grew up in an under-resourced community just outside Chicago, also says she sees a lot of her younger self in Raez and hopes working with her can be as valuable for Raez as working with her own women mentors was for her. Diaz says she’s already connected Raez to colleagues and others in the field, including a professor friend at an East Coast university Raez mentioned being interested in possibly applying to. That professor, in turn, connected Raez to two Latina undergraduate students who were happy to share their own experiences.

That feeling of community and budding support system, Raez says, really set the STEM Lab experience apart and gave her resources she can continue to tap as she starts applying to colleges in the fall and in the years that follow.

“Coming here to the lab, I thought I was going to be an outsider, everyone was going to be like, ‘Oh my god, the high school student’s going to be asking questions all day and bothering us!’ But everyone is so welcoming, and they really treated me as if I was part of their team and their lab,” she said. “And they didn’t underestimate how much I knew, they just cared about how much I wanted to learn, so I truly felt like I was part of the University here and it felt awesome to be part of such a great community and have so many talented people working all around me.”

—Article originally published on the Office of Civic Engagement website