During July 6th to Sept.7th, undergraduate students Song Xuewei and Zhang Ying with a specialty of applied bioscience visited university of UC Davis for the GREAT(Global Research Experience in Advanced Technologies) program about nine weeks. This program focuses students on experiencing American lab life, realizing interest of cross-disciplinary subject and improving quality in scientific research. The cooperative research allows students to choose their favorite mentors freely. Each person can list three mentors and finally will be accepted by one of them. Song Xuewei joined in the department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering (BAE), her mentor was assistant professor Zhiliang (Julia) Fan, and she majored in bio-fermentation. In addition, Zhang Ying took part in the department of Biomedical Engineering, worked in Professor Cheemeng Tann’s lab on artificial cells.

  Apart from doing researches in labs, students also need to have English lectures given by faculties twice a week. The content included research planning and culture, personal statement, scientific writing of research abstracts, scientific presentation skills and so on.

At the end of project, students were required to give a summary of their work through presentation or poster. And the final interdisciplinary research internship symposium was held in International Center Multipurpose Room and invited the project leaders and professors. During this internship, students not only learned the basic skills and how to conduct a project independently, but also had a good knowledge of lab culture in America. Apart from classes and research, students went to the Lake Tahoe which lies in the border of California and Nevada. Since beach is beautiful and lake is clear, everyone had a good time here.

In a word, it is such an honor to have an internship in Davis since agriculture in Davis ranks the first in the world. Also, they really benefited a lot and had a good insight into research and environment of America.