Gaining research experience

[Jeanette]

How does one go about gaining research experience before applying to PhD/PsyD programs?

I have great GRE scores and a great GPA, but absolutely no research experience to speak of. My primary interest is clinical psychology practice, not research, but I understand it's a requirement.

Also, for those of you who had to submit a paper with your application, what type of paper did you write? Was it a review of literature? A study that you conducted?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[erg923]

Yes, you do need research experience, as this is this is one of the determing factors in applying for Ph.D. programs. Good grades and good GREs arent going to get you anywhere if you never got any reseasrch experience. If you have no interest in resesarch, I would not even bother applying to Ph.D programs, as you would be miserbale during your grad school career. Psy.D sounds like what you are looking for, no?

I am sure professors in your department are conducting resesarch. You simply have to find out who does what and ask them if they need any volunteers to help. you are at a large university, this will not be a problem as the resesarch propgrams are larger and tons of undergrads assit professors. At smaller schools it may be slightluy more difficult. In this case you jjust need to be persistent, and see if they can help you get invloved in anything. Looking outside your university is also an option. Hospitals and academic med centers.

I am not sure what you mean by submitting a paper with your application? Are you refering to the personal statement for the application, or like a sample of a paper you wrote in a class? In remember that a couple of programs asked for sample papers. In that case I sent them my senior honors research thesis.

 

[Jeanette]

It's not that I don't like doing research or have no interest in it, but my primary goal is counseling, particularly health psychology.

Getting research experience through my school is not feasible as I"ve been out of school for a while. How do you find work in hospitals and academic med centers? You just call up and say, hi, I'd like to do some research work?

Do you get paid for this kind of work? How flexible are your hours?

 

[erg923]

Yep, just call them up. Also, search for RA jobs on their websites. Obvioulsy some paid positions will be available, mostly the full time ones. But per diem postions can get paid too. Many people volunteer if paid postions are not open/available.

 

[Jeanette]

Thanks!

 

[scienceisbeauty]

Sometimes getting an RA position is competitive and I know of a few profs who prefer selecting students in school...but that doesn't hinder you really.
What I suggest is doing: For the people you are interested in RAing for - read some of their most recent publications, tell them that you read such and such an article and found it interesting... say that you'll be applying to grad school and wanted to get some more experience with research work and was wondering if they were looking for anyone.

Sometimes the best RA positions are not advertised...

 

[JockNerd]

It's not that I don't like doing research or have no interest in it, but my primary goal is counseling, particularly health psychology.

Getting research experience through my school is not feasible as I"ve been out of school for a while. How do you find work in hospitals and academic med centers? You just call up and say, hi, I'd like to do some research work?

Do you get paid for this kind of work? How flexible are your hours?

You can run a search for this topic for more info; there have been a dozen threads on this in the last year.

 

[Jeanette]

Yes, I did a search. There are threads under the other categories (pre-med, pre-dental etc.) but I"m intrested specifically in psych research.

 

[RayneeDeigh]

Yes, I did a search. There are threads under the other categories (pre-med, pre-dental etc.) but I"m intrested specifically in psych research.

I think there have been about a billion threads about psych RA stuff, just go through page by page and I'm sure you'll find tons.

 

[JockNerd]

Yes, I did a search. There are threads under the other categories (pre-med, pre-dental etc.) but I"m intrested specifically in psych research.

RD's "about a billion" is about right. From the psych PhD/PsyD page, click the "Search this forum" (NOT "Search"), and you'll get just psych forum results. You'll find dozens of threads about exactly what you're asking.