NIH Summer Internship

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is one of the leading biomedical research agencies of the federal government. The NIH offers a variety of summer internships for students, often especially for those who are working towards a master’s degree, Ph.D., or other professional scientific degree. Students who pursue a summer internship with the NIH get a chance to work alongside some of the world’s leading scientists in a cutting-edge biomedical research environment.

The NIH consists of 27 institutes with more than 1200 laboratories; some of the institutes include the National Institute of Cancer, National Eye Institute, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, and the NIH Clinical Center. Students who pursue a summer internship here will find that the program gives them a competitive edge on their resumes and provides a foundation for what they will pursue in their future careers. In addition to providing students an opportunity to discover how scientific investigating and biomedical research work, the National Institutes of Health also offers a series of summer activities that students are encouraged to take some time out to participate in. Some of these activities are lectures from eminent NIH scientists and career and professional development workshops.

Benefits of an NIH Internship

Professional Training

Completing an NIH internship over a summer provides the intern with intense formal, hands-on training. This summer experience will also provide the intern a unique and incredible opportunity to advance his or her career, be mentored by top-notch professionals, and explore a variety of areas of scientific work with rotational assignments.

Compensation

The NIH offers a stipend for trainees, which depends on their educational qualification and prior work experience. There are specified compensation levels for high school students, undergraduates, and graduate students. Within these levels, adjustments are made for each student’s level of experience. Select interns are also provided with an opportunity to advance from the internship to a federal public service career path. If a lab does not have the funds to pay its interns, then students may be invited to work with the lab as an unpaid volunteer.

Eligibility for the Summer Internship Program at the NIH

Internships at the NIH are highly coveted and consequently highly competitive, as is apparent from past application statistics: in a year in which more than 6,700 applications were received by the institute, only 1,200 interns were ultimately selected.

Applicants for the NIH internship program should expect to encounter certain requirements before she or he will be accepted into the summer internship program. Some of these requirements may include:

High school applicants must be at least sixteen years of age and should be currently enrolled at least half time in high school at the time they begin the program.
Other applicants should be enrolled at an accredited U.S. college or university as an undergraduate or graduate student; students who have been accepted to any of these educational institutions may also apply.

Make your NIH Summer Internship Application Successful

To increase your chances of being offered a position with the NIH, keep the following tips in mind:

Acceptance decisions are made on a rolling basis, so apply as soon as possible to the program you wish to participate in.
Choose as your references people who can give evidence as to why you will be an asset to a research group. Letters of recommendation will be required as part of your application, and these letters will ideally provide insightful comment on your skill sets in the laboratory, your creativity, motivation, problem-solving capabilities, and your ability to handle complex scientific concepts and reading materials. If the writers of your recommendations letters have strong scientific backgrounds, the recommendations may carry more weight with the admission committee.
Once you’ve submitted your application, it can be a good idea to contact personally the specific NIH scientist with whom you are interested in working. Don’t send a generalized email to multiple scientists; instead, a few scientists whose work interests you and send each of them a personalized email that focuses on the kind of work they do, asks thoughtful questions about their subject of expertise, and explain some of your reasons for being interested in their work specifically.

A summer internship with the National Institutes of Health is a fabulous opportunity. Explore the intern jobs available for the summer here and let Internships.com help you get closer to the internship you want.