psych premeds with a year off?

[giggledesi]

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Hi,
I am a psych major and plan on taking a year off before I apply to medical school... I was wondering what sort of jobs are out their for psych premeds? Research jobs usually ask for bio majors... If anyone has any advice that would be great! thanks!

 

[SC Alex]

I worked as a Pscyhophysiological tester for a project at my school. It's interesting at first and I am going to get a publication out of it, but it helps you realize why you really want to keep going to school and get into medicine. Easiest way to get a job would be by looking at the different psyc labs on campus, and see which one interests you/is hiring. The only downside with workign for an on-campus research project is that they are going to be grant funded which generally means your pay is going to be crap. Just keep telling yourself it's a resume booster.

Alex

 

[b&ierstiefel]

have you taken any classes and/or found any interest in biopsych? working in a biopsych lab, i suspect, would be kinda fun.

 

[SC Alex]

Well I took a lot of Nueropsych and I find it very intersting. My paper is actually on an auditory mismatch ERP. I have just found that psych research isn't quantitative enough for me (even with the physiological measures we do I still have to correlate my findings with behavioral measures that I don't trust too much.) It was very interesting, and I am glad I did it, but I know now that medicine is defintely the only way to go for me. I would def recommend doing research in your year off, it will tell you a lot about what you are or are not interested in.

 

[beamiestface]

Psychology labs often have full-time RAs as well, if you would be interested in doing psych research. If you're more interested in the biological side of things, many neuroscience-y psych labs have openings like this as well. It's hard to find out where these openings are, but you can start by emailing professors in labs/cities you'd be interested in working in to see if they have any openings. They might pass your resume on to people who do.

If you know what kind of psych you'd want to work in, you could check out the webpage for socieities for that kind of research. For example, I'm interested in working with infants/children, so I'd look at the International Society of Infant Studies and the Society for Research in Child Development for full-time RA jobs.

Good luck!

 

[El Chupacabra]

I did the same thing (took a year off). Incidentally, I found a great and well-paying position as a clinical historian working for a neuropsychiatrist. Basically, you interview each patient and write-up their history for the physician to read. This is a great position for someone with a psychology background. I would just call a few psychiatrist's offices and findd out if the need an historian. Good luck.