UG Junior, looking at Psych Grad for first time

[PeterParker20]

Okay, I'll try to keep this short and sweet.

I'm a junior at Rice University, double majoring in political science and psychology. I majored in these subjects because they are very interesting to me; I didn't have any vocational reasons.

Anyway, as senior year looms close and I still lack certainty in to what direction I should go, I am looking increasingly into psychology and becoming a psychologist - including research, teaching, or clincal practice - each sounds appealing to me.

So a few questions:

My first step would be, ideally, to see the day to day work of what various research or clinical psychologists actually do, or at least get a good picture of what I'm getting myself into. How would I go about doing that?

Next, I would need to figure out what area of psychology (research, clinical, I/O, professor) I am most interested in.

If the first two steps go well, then comes another rather big task - getting into a graduate psychology school. My GPA is 3.65 currently but I am sure I can get it to at least 3.75 by graduation. I have not taken the GRE but I absolutely crushed the SAT and ACT; I don't know how much scores correlate on those if at all. My list of extracurriculars and leadership positions are enormous, but not psychology related. The main problem is going to be - research experience.

The problem with turning an eye to psychology as a career this late in the game is that I haven't been doing any research - outside of different independent experiemental research under a professor as part of a class.

Right now, I am in Australia studying abroad. But I'm taking psychology courses here, and MAYBE I can start working on something for a few months here, although I don't know if it'd be worth it. As a consequence of studying abroad, my summer will only be 6 weeks long this year - hardly enough to accomplish anything I'm afraid. So should I just start emailing professors/ the psych department from my home university now about research opportunities and hope for the best, or am I already woefully and helplessly screwed? What would you do if you were in my shoes right now? I wish I had looked into this earlier at undergrad, but my interests were ephemeral freshman and sophomore years.

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[KillerDiller]

What is going to help you most is getting research experience. So, yes, if you can get experience there in Australia, go for it. If not, emailing professors at Rice is a good start. This will start giving you an idea of whether or not you like research as well as what areas of psychology you would be interested in pursuing. It's also one of the single most important factors in admission to Ph.D programs.

You can also try volunteering at a clinical site your senior year. Although you won't be able to do the work of a psychologist specifically, this experience would likely give you a good idea of whether you'd be interested in clinical work. If you decide you like both clinical work and research, the good news is that you don't have to choose between the two, you can go for a Ph.D in clinical psychology.

As for the GRE, scores correlate with the SAT to some extent. From my personal experience, my GRE scores were nearly identical to my SAT scores (this was back before they changed the scale of the SAT obviously). However, I didn't study at all for the SAT and I actually studied fairly hard for the GRE.

 

[PeterParker20]

Thanks for the info.

Some other quick questions to those more experienced than I:

How much does grad school suck? I just read a lot of interesting perspectives on this - most centered around virtually giving up your life and playing political games.

From your experience, is getting a pHD in psychology feel more hopeful than pHDs in other fields, because the Pysc pHD degree leads to more accessible job opportunities as a clinical or licensed psycholgist, and you're not necessarily banking on trying for an impossible-to-land tenure track position as a professor?

Like getting a pHD in the humanities - you're banking on an academic position, etc - which I heard may be very difficult to come by, competition is fierce, there are a glut of pHDs... but psyc doctorates have the professional option of clinical or school psychology, or entering private practice, correct? If someone can give me better insight into this, that would be great. I'm starting to think 6 or 7 years in graduate school, in costs of time and money, are a much bigger comittment than I originally supposed. I don't want to close off any options or self-discovery by choosing to go. On the other hand, I don't feel like closing the door on becoming a psychologist.

 

[cara susanna]

You need to actually get involved in research to see if you like it, and find out your interests.

 

[psychanxiety]

In terms of grad school costs, most (good) PhD programs will give you a small stipend (at least 12,000+) and waive tuition. So it's not nearly the financial investment of law school, med school, b-school, etc. But it's still a big time commitment.

Like everyone else said, you absolutely need research experience- both to get in and also to see if you like it. You need to like research to get a PhD- at least going into the program. You can change your mind later, but programs want to take students who like research and you'll be spending a LOT of time doing it in grad school. If you decide you want to go this route after seeing some research, I would recommend taking time off after graduation (1-2yrs) to get more significant research experience. Then with your grades, gres, etc you'll be a great candidate. Clinical experience is less important, but still good.

As far as school psych, that's a totally different program than a clinical PhD. You would go to a school psych PhD program.

 

[deleted176373]

Okay, I'll try to keep this short and sweet.

Anyway, as senior year looms close and I still lack certainty in to what direction I should go, I am looking increasingly into psychology and becoming a psychologist - including research, teaching, or clincal practice - each sounds appealing to me.

It's not too late, but the window is getting narrow. You're behind the curve though for lab experience, but you already know that.

If the first two steps go well, then comes another rather big task - getting into a graduate psychology school. My GPA is 3.65 currently but I am sure I can get it to at least 3.75 by graduation. I have not taken the GRE but I absolutely crushed the SAT and ACT; I don't know how much scores correlate on those if at all. My list of extracurriculars and leadership positions are enormous, but not psychology related. The main problem is going to be - research experience.

Don't underestimate the difficulty of this step. I would caution you from thinking you are going to walk in and crush the GRE. It happens, I saw my wife walk in cold off the street and pull a 1440, but that's the exception and certainly not the rule. Your extracurriculars, well they are pretty much meaningless. Seriously, no one will really care... they want research experience or clinical experience when you apply. Raising the GPA to a 3.75 will help, Rice is a good school and that will also help.

The problem with turning an eye to psychology as a career this late in the game is that I haven't been doing any research - outside of different independent experiemental research under a professor as part of a class.

So should I just start emailing professors/ the psych department from my home university now about research opportunities and hope for the best, or am I already woefully and helplessly screwed? What would you do if you were in my shoes right now? I wish I had looked into this earlier at undergrad, but my interests were ephemeral freshman and sophomore years.

You're partially screwed, but by engaging in research now (or this summer) you can at least show that you are serious about it. You might have to wait an extra year for grad school in order to have enough research experience to get where you want to be. This will limit you, however stratospheric GRE scores and an active interest in conducting research may overcome some of this.

Good Luck, it will be a tough road.

Mark

PS - Grad school doesn't suck, but you'll have some sleep deprivation.

 

[researchgirl]

Take a year off before grad school and do research. Try to get involved in some shorter term research projects now. Spend senior year getting more research experience, studying for GREs, and raising your GPA.

The year off will help a lot in demonstrating experience, and I think it's smart to do before a PhD for a number of reasons.

 

[Aggieanthony]

Hey there,

You're in a very similar situation to mine a year ago.

My choice was to finish a pre-doctoral Master's degree, which provided 2 years of pure, unadulterated research in a variety of fields, all of which turned my application/CV into a "Well his GPA is good, and his GRE is really good, but we'll pass because he doesn't have any research" into "We'll take him!" That's an overdramatization but nonetheless, it was a good decision for me.

If you could hook up with one of your Rice Psychology professors and research under them, even informally for a year or so, that'll definitely enhance your application.

As usual, Markp's contribution to your problem is also spot-on.

 

[AryaStark]

I don't know if I'd necessarily say you're screwed, but to get the kind of experience others have that you will be competing with, you're going to have to spread yourself pretty thin. Junior year I started panicking because I realized i needed research experience. Thus, I applied for a summer internship. Then, whenever someone offered me a position on a research team I took it. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have lent myself to so many (4 in one semester) but it sure gave me a LOT of experience. So try to get involved as best you can. Show enthusiasm. Maybe ask to do an independent/directed study with a professor who's doing research. The only problem doing that next year is that if you plan to apply to PhD programs, it will be from late summer to the deadlines in December or January. Although that seems like a long time from now, it really isn't. That means you will have to start looking NOW to have any research that you can speak about in depth come September when you begin writing your personal statement. Also, if you want a LOR from the PI you will need to work with them longer than a few months.

I agree with mark about the GREs. Although you dominated the SATs... when was the last time you had to read a word problem and apply algebra and geometry to it? The good thing about the SAT is that you've had vocabulary in your English classes that is fresh in your mind, and you've had math classes all 4 years of high school. As I studied for the GREs I only then realized how rusty my knowledge of triangles, parallelograms, foiling, etc really was. Going into the test thinking you'll ace it will just leave you feeling like crap and out 140 bucks (plus however much it costs to either retake it or send them to your schools) But then again, I don’t know how you are with math or verbal, so make sure you remember how to do everything.

Again like Mark said, extracurricular are GREAT. Stay involved, but it really isn't going to show the schools anything other than the fact that you can multitask. Unfortunately for you though, most people who are competitive for programs tend to be able to multitask (they generally have to be)
I guess my verdict on the issue is that if you are the type of person who can handle applying to PhD programs (which I found was A LOT more work than I thought it would be--- like having a full time job almost), taking required senior courses, doing a ton of research that will make you competitive for programs, maintaining your astronomical levels of extracurricular involvement, and studying for the GREs all at once.. do it. I was able to and got a few interviews. However, if you don't think that's something you want to do your last year of (somewhat) freedom, then take a year off.
I may be completely off, and I hope you take everybody's advice with a grain of salt. But as a spring semester senior who was in a similar situation, this has been my experience.

 

[thirdeye99]

It's not too late, but the window is getting narrow. You're behind the curve though for lab experience, but you already know that. You're partially screwed, but by engaging in research now (or this summer) you can at least show that you are serious about it.

I think this is overstating it a bit. Mark's advice is of course spot on about what you willl need to do, but it's not the end of the world if you don't have the experience coming out of undergrad. The window is still wide open. You'll just want/need to take time after undergrad to gain that experience. And you don't have to do it all in one year either; consider taking a couple of years to work as a research assistant in one or more labs. Or you could also enter a masters program with a strong research component. However, that typically is not going to make you any more competitive compared to applicants with a bachelors and research experience. It will cost you money, and you will have to repeat most or all of the course work in PhD training anyway.

In addition to not only just gaining any research experience, two things are important:
1) finding your interest area in psychology. Not only the broad areas (I/O, clinical, experimental), but also the specific issues within those headings (i.e. mood disorders in the elderly, or medical psych with a focus on cancer, etc). You will be targeting and applying to work with specific professors, so you will want to to have a good idea about the population & issues you want to investigate and be able to articulate it in the interview. If you can get experience in this area prior to applying, all the better.

2) Try your best to get an RA position with a productive research group. Preferably a group that has at least one larger active grant and who places an emphasis on writing and publishing. Some professors simply don't write that much, others do. The more emphasis they place on writing, the more chance you'll get to do it yourself and get your name on a couple abstracts/manuscripts. If you can find someone doing psych-related clinical trials, even better because you can get both research and clinical assessment experience. I know Rice doesn't have a clinical program, but I'm sure you could find clinically-oriented research going on in psychiatry departments at Baylor Medical, U Houston, UT Health Science, etc.

So again, I would say no need to rush this. Most important is to get it right.

 

[ladysky61]

I am a Junior in college too so I am just starting the process, but I'll put in my 2 cents as well.

-First, I would start contacting professors at Rice to be a research assistant NOW. At least at my school its fairly a . Even though you only have a 6 week summer, see if you can start doing research with this person over the summer and a few hours a week during your senior year. (you are going to be stretched pretty thin).

-Start studying for the GREs and look into grad schools that you might be interested.

-Look into clinical positions to part take in this school year.

But honestly, I don't see how you could know what grad school you want to go to, write essays about it in a few months and successfully get in to this grad school in a year. Its just not realistic.

However, I would use your senior year to figure out your research interests and career goals. Then apply for research positions for the coming year.

 

[aly cat]

While what everyone is saying is mostly sound advice, you need to take it with a grain of salt because the process works differently for different people.

Last year, I was in a similar position as you. In fact I had been premed my first 2 years, but then I realized my grades just were not cutting it for medical school. (My overall gpa is much lower than yours, but my psyc GPA is about equal and my junior/senior gpa that some schools consider is about 3.75). I had been a psychology major all along and decided that psyc was where my heart was. After dropping premed, I realized it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to graduate a year early, so I arranged my schedule so that I would be able to. I had research experience, but not much (2 semesters in a biology lab where I hated the topics I was researching but loved learning the research process). So to get as much as I could, I started working for a research lab my 3rd (senior) year in August where I made a one year commitment, which was noted in my personal statement. I also enrolled in a research methods course where an independent research project was required.

I studied for the GREs during the summer and did comparable to my SATs (though as someone else said I did no studying whatsoever for SATs but studied a reasonable amount for GRE).

I only got one interview, but I also got in. It is a fully funded program (in addition I was awarded a fellowship) and though its not Yale or one of the USCs, its a perfect fit for me.

So start researching as soon as you possibly can, and start looking into schools. From this past May when I made up my mind to this Feburary were among the toughest 9 months of my life, but I'm proof that it can be done. Don't be discouraged, keep your head up, work hard and if you don't get in this cycle, then you can work on adding more research or getting a masters. But if this is what you really want, give it a shot.. you just never know until you try.

 

[dd123]

I agree with research girl. take a year off. It’ll be worth it. It sounds like you could use it, and you might be very glad you did, down the road.

As ladysky said: But honestly, I don't see how you could know what grad school you want to go to, write essays about it in a few months and successfully get in to this grad school in a year. Its just not realistic.

I wouldn’t put too much stake into spending one day shadowing a psychologist. The types of work done are so incredibly vast…I’d spend time reading about it first. Find out what sorts of jobs/opportunities are out there.

 

[cardamom]

One thing I don't think anyone has mentioned yet (I've skimmed all of the posts) is the possibility of doing a senior thesis. If people do those at your school, I'd scramble around and see if you can still do one. At my school, I had planned mine out by this time my junior year (or at least, who I'd be working with and the general topic), but I had a friend who decided to try to do last minute and found a faculty member willing to advise him. If you can do that, even if it's not in the area you eventually work in (though big bonus points if it is), doing your own research will put you a step ahead generally of people who only have research experience as RAs. You should still try to get RA experience too, and I'd recommend taking time off (at least a year, but probably two) to do that, but the combo of RA work and independent research is an impressive one, especially if you can manage at least a poster presentation somewhere.