The Thursday Career Pathways (TGIT) series is a set of career talks featuring current University of Rochester professors and former PhD students. The TGIT series is open only to Computational Methods for Understanding Music, Media, and Minds REU participants, and allows students to learn about earning a doctorate and PhD career options in a casual, intimate setting. Speakers directly discuss about their own experiences in graduate school, and provide students with honest advice about exploring a PhD, choosing between jobs in industry and academia, and jumpstarting their careers.

The data science summer colloquium series is a sequence of research talks held every other Wednesday during the summer REU session. The series allows the REU and University of Rochester community to interact with leading researchers from UR and institutions across the country, who utilize data science in their work. In these one hour, open to the public seminars, speakers present on their current research projects and findings. Students have the opportunity to ask questions and gain insights into the processes and challenges of performing research.

Over the course of the summer, REU students have to opportunity to explore all that the Rochester, New York region has to offer, with complimentary tickets to local museums, sporting events and/or concerts. Popular attractions include:

• Rochester Public Market
• Memorial Art Gallery
• Upper Falls Park
• Underground Railroad
• Letchworth State Park
• Rochester International Jazz Festival
• Finger Lakes Region
• Rochester Red Wings Games

In addition, the David T. Kearns Center, which coordinates REU programs across the UR campus, and Wilson Commons Student Activities, host numerous student social events throughout the summer, including barbecues, movie nights, and scavenger hunts.

The Undergraduate Research Symposium is an end-of-summer event, that showcases REU student research from across the University of Rochester campus. Hosted by the David T. Kearns Center, which helps to coordinate REU programs across UR, the symposium consists of student presentations and a poster session. Students gain valuable public speaking and presenting skills, and learn how to discuss complex research in ways that are understandable to a non-academic audience.