You all are keeping me very entertained and delightfully distracted during what has turned out to be a more stressful time than I had anticipated! I love the support network we have created on here 🙂
I want to preface this by saying I am meeting with several mentors this week to discuss rankings and am having ongoing discussions with partner and family, but am having a really hard time with ranking my top three sites, so any feedback and thoughts are welcome!! I did not have the #wandsite feeling at any site (I'm so happy for those of you that did!). I think that this is in part due to the fact that I am pretty research focused and want a research career and don't love doing clinical work (even though I love discovering new information to help inform our treatments!). Here are my thoughts on the three sites that I liked most:
One site has a lot of excellent DBT training, opportunities to work with children and year-long exposure to a specific population (these things make clinical work a lot more tolerable for me). Research-wise, the site would support my writing a grant to stay on as a post-doc (and has successfully funded folks!) and has research that is in line with my own. Interns here were super happy. The problem is that even though the location is AMAZING, it is far from where my partner wants to be and far from family, and it would be hard for him to move there job-wise. Minor issues are that there is no dedicated research time (though the clinical load is less here than other sites, so I'd have time on my own, and previous interns have done research while there) or funds provided to attend a research conference.
Another site has a full research day (EIGHT full hours!!) all year long. I would have weekly meetings with a research mentor who told me that they would support my writing a grant to stay on for post-doc and would have soft money to fund me if I didn't get the grant immediately. The site also has existing research opportunities that fit well with my research interests (though they are outside of my specific population) and would provide some funding for me to attend a research conference. The site also starts later than most, which for me means that I would definitely be able to get my dissertation done before I leave AND would likely be able to submit the post-doc grant for the summer deadline before even starting. This site has child training opportunities and the location would work well on a personal level with my partner and our families (the city is also beautiful and I would be happy to live there). Interns here were also super happy. The cons are that there is no DBT training and I would only get to spend one day per week for 6 months with the specific population. In addition, there are not as many opportunities to expand my research network here as it pertains to my passion population (e.g., there are not many people who study my specific "thing") and I worry what implications that might have for my career.
The third site was the one that I thought would be my #wandsite. Clinically, I would receive year-long exposure to the specific population and gain complementary experiences to the specific population, as well as the opportunity to work with children year-round and get more training in DBT and other third-wave behavioral therapies. Research-wise, I can do a 6-month research rotation (8 hours per week) - but for only one semester - and there are research opportunities that are in line with my goals. The site also fully funds attendance to one conference. Personally, the site is in my favorite US city and is do-able for my partner and close-ish to our families. Finally, interns here were also super happy (an important thing for me and a common thread with my three sites). The major con is that they would NOT support my writing a grant to stay for a research post-doc AND there are no built-in post-doc opportunities there for me - which is a big change from the past for this site. Had this information not changed, I would likely be ranking them as #1. I should note that they do support interns in helping to find post-docs at other places, but I was very much hoping to stay at this site for post-doc if I matched, so learning this new information was really disappointing. The workload here would also make writing a grant for a post-doc at another institution difficult.
Any thoughts/feedback are very welcome, especially since you all are an objective audience (even if you don't know me personally). Thanks #forumfam!