I'm wondering if someone can advise me on the following issue. I know that most Clinical PhD programs require certain courses to be taken prior to admission, the most commonly desired being statistics, research methods, and experimental psychology.
First and foremost - what exactly counts as 'experimental psychology'? My school does not offer a class under this category, so would taking a lab-based psychology class (as I'm currently doing) classify as such?
Second - I took a course in Statistics and Research Methods for the behavioral sciences, which is a requirement for psych majors at my school. I'm also currently taking an upper-level seminar in advanced psychology research methods, which I was hoping would help boost my credentials. The problem is, this course is designed for graduate students and is way over my head - in fact, my chances of getting above a B are slim to none. Given this, would it be better to drop and not having a 'research methods' course in my transcript, or continue with it and risk the (probable) B and corresponding drop in my GPA? 😕 I do already have a course in statistics and research design, theoretically, but not 'research methods'.
Just to put things in perspective, I'm a second-semester senior psych major, and am going to take a couple years off before applying to grad schools to work as an RA.
I would really appreciate any and all input, thank you in advance!! 🙂
