Psychiatric Research Experience

[PsychPhDHopeful]

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Hi there,

I am still a senior and have respectable research experience at great universities in the research area I am interested in - I am getting decent scores on the practice gre's but not where I know they can be. So I decided to take another year off before applying to research heavy clinical programs next fall.

I will be graduating this spring and I know research coordinator positions are hard to come by. I don't see many postings for them at my local universities (I check periodically). However, there are a great deal of jobs available at the very well-respected hospitals within a general vicinity of where I live. Would a research coordinator position with a Psychiatry dept be acceptable/relevant research experience? Or should I hold out for a position to open up at a psychology department at one of my local universities?

 

[Ollie123]

Absolutely. This is particularly true if it is research relevant to what you want to do, but either way research experience in the mental health field is valuable.

The only downside is that depending on the research area, they may be slightly less likely to have personal connections to people you are applying with. Though that isn't always true by any stretch of the imagination - many of the "top" psychology researchers in the field are in departments other than psychology. Working for someone like that certainly wouldn't hold you back.

 

[PsychPhDHopeful]

Absolutely. This is particularly true if it is research relevant to what you want to do, but either way research experience in the mental health field is valuable.

The only downside is that depending on the research area, they may be slightly less likely to have personal connections to people you are applying with. Though that isn't always true by any stretch of the imagination - many of the "top" psychology researchers in the field are in departments other than psychology. Working for someone like that certainly wouldn't hold you back.

Great! That is very helpful.

One more question - should I be open about my plans to apply to a Clinical Psych program? Do you think the employers would frown upon that?

 

[roubs]

Great! That is very helpful.

One more question - should I be open about my plans to apply to a Clinical Psych program? Do you think the employers would frown upon that?

I did this after college at a major academic medical center, they were aware that nearly everyone interested in these jobs is 'transitional'.

 

[syzergy]

I've worked in social work, community psych, and development psych labs. I picked them up because they were all in my area of interest. Some of the philosophies were a bit different than clinical psych but it didn't seem to matter to anyone. And they all understood that I was working in the labs because I wanted to apply to clinical psych programs and no one had a problem. In fact, I received lots of help from both the faculty and grad students in the programs.

 

[PsychPhDone]

I will be graduating this spring and I know research coordinator positions are hard to come by. I don't see many postings for them at my local universities (I check periodically). However, there are a great deal of jobs available at the very well-respected hospitals within a general vicinity of where I live. Would a research coordinator position with a Psychiatry dept be acceptable/relevant research experience? Or should I hold out for a position to open up at a psychology department at one of my local universities?

YES. There are often many psychologists in departments of psychiatry. They tend to be in psychiatry because they have grants. It's a different sort of academic path. I (and most of my grad school cohort) were RAs in academic medical centers in departments of psychiatry.