Should Physics Majors Pursue REUs for a Stronger CV?

[Agent M27]

I was asking my professor about other classes they taught because I enjoyed her style of teaching. The subject of research came up and she is working on a discrete haar wavelet transformation. When I looked it up it said it would be useful in image processing and data reduction to "denoise" the signal. My ultimate goal is to continue to a PhD in astrophysics and I know computational maths/physics will play a key role in my future. So the question is should I go for it? I know it can't hurt but how appealing would this be on my cv given my future path? Thanks.

Joe

 

[sin2beta]

If it interests you, absolutely! It would be very applicable to many fields of research. And an REU does not have to be in the field that you currently study. It helps, but is not needed. And discrete wavelet transformations will help in physics depending on what experiment you work on.

But the big thing that an REU does is introduce you to research. In a way the subject that you study is only secondary. In undergrad I did 2 REUs and 1 summer internship all in particle physics. My graduate work is completely unrelated but I have been able to bring so much great research with me. I could not imagine how grad school would be if I didn't already get over the initial stress of starting research.