SURF requires two written progress reports, an abstract, a final technical paper, and a final oral presentation. These reports help students develop good communication skills, focus on progress toward their research goals, and synthesize the work done over the ten-week period.
Progress Reports
Follow these progress report writing requirements. The deadline for these reports
is 5:00 pm on the July and August pay dates.
Abstracts
Abstracts are compiled in the SURF abstract book for each of the scheduled seminar days. Please
follow these abstract writing requirements. The deadline for the abstract is
5:00 pm on the August pay date.
Final Technical Paper
Follow these final report writing requirements. Please read and follow them carefully.
Deadline is the fourth Friday in September. A booklet on "Effective Technical
Writing" has been put together as a resource for the students and is available
here.
Final Oral or Poster Presentation
All SURF students are required to give an oral or poster presentation on one of the regularly scheduled seminar days. However, some students may arrange to give their presentations at other times.
The SURF Talk Book provides assistance in the preparation of the oral presentation. The purpose of the book is not a speech textbook providing useful information for all types of speaking presentations, rather its focus is for undergraduate students presenting highly technical information to a general audience. For guidelines, access the SURF Talk Book (pdf).
SURF Seminar Day in October is the first round of the Doris S. Perpall SURF Speaking Competition. Presentations by Caltech students will be evaluated, and the students giving the best talks in each session will advance to a semi final round. Judging criteria for the Perpall competition may be found here (pdf).
Failure to complete all of these requirements by the deadline will jeopardize
future applications, recommendations, and the posting of SURF on a Caltech
transcript.
