Narrowing the proficiency gap between chemistry graduates and chemistry professionals has received very little attention in chemistry education literature and meetings. The recruiters that come to our university recommended that the ability to apply knowledge and skills to real-world settings would improve the quality of students' preparation for careers. Completing a significant (applied) learning project before graduation would be a useful component of the curriculum. Undergraduate research seems to be the right pedagogical tool to materialize the aforementioned suggestion. Preceptors in graduate schools also agree that previous undergraduate research experience is very useful in shortening the startup delays in PhD projects. The purpose of the proposed symposium is to initiate the discussion and find solutions that would increase the efficacy of undergraduate research. The following questions could be used to formulate discussion topics: What does the project’s introduction to a student need to contain (scientific details, expected new knowledge to be produced, end goal such as a conference poster or publication, relevance/benefits to a student’s future career, expectations of students)? How to stimulate the students’ motivation? How do we design the syllabus and grading rubrics; should they be individualized or the same for all the students involved? How do we balance producing data and the student’s learning? How can the design be leveraged to achieve the aforementioned goal of a course embedded undergraduate research experience or the classical version when an undergrad becomes a member of a research group?