YRP@IBN

Why you should go for YRP@IBN.

1. Awesome mentors. My mentor was really nice and professional, knew how to combine guiding the student with letting them explore on their own. And I knew I could always go to her for help if I didn’t understand something.

2. Good chance to interact with scientists to see if you want to join them in future. You can also get advice on the people there on a career in science. When I was there, quite a few people were current or ex A*STAR scholars, so I could ask them how they were finding their experience.

3. If you are interested in A*STAR scholarship, this is an experience which you can use to gauge whether you want to apply for the scholarship or not.

4. Gives you something fun to do in the holidays.

5. Great facilities. A*STAR is a premier research institute, so the facilities are very modern, and there’s enough machines like PCR machine, etc, to go round comfortably.

6. You get to work on part of your mentor’s project! How cool is that?

7. Even if you’re not a bio person, you can still benefit from YRP. Personally, I’m more into the physical sciences, but research nowadays is very interdisciplinary, so what you learn in IBN may come in useful someday!

8. You could use your project as your ARP (if you want). But be careful about making sure you first get approval to share your work with non-A*STAR people, as per A*STAR’s policy. That includes your school teachers.

Who shouldn’t go for YRP?

1. You absolutely hate research and are dead sure you don’t want to do it as a career.

2. You are a really hardcore physical science person and will NEVER ever do anything bio related.

3. You only want to go there to boost your resume, and aren’t interested at all. It will reflect. Badly.