PhD/PsyD Research Experience Somewhat Unrelated to Current Interest

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ThatGuy15

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I am currently a senior at NYU and will be graduating by the end of Spring 2017 term. My academic interest is to pursue a career as a clinical psychologist and further specializing in neuropsychology. However, before I apply to Ph.D. programs, I first would like to earn a master's degree and gain research experience in neuropsychology. I've already applied to the experimental psychology program at one of the CUNY schools. Additionally, in my correspondence with a clinical neuropsychologist at that particular CUNY school, I was offered a research position at Albert Einstein Medical School to work in her neuropsychology laboratory. This professor also happened to be one of my advisers when I was part of a neuroscience project at that school.

The problem here is, although her research work is interesting, and she does incredible research work on dementia and Alzheimer's disease, I am primarily interested in traumatic brain injury and developmental psychopathology from a neuropsychological perspective. Now my question to you is: What should I do? Do I accept her offer and pursue my master's degree working on my thesis based on her current work? Would Ph.D. programs consider the fact that despite my research experience in neuropsychology being outside of trauma, I still would like to pursue a research laboratory working with traumatic brain injuries?

I apologize for asking too many questions. Thank you and enjoy your day.

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As undergrad "research experience" goes, that is more than close enough. The focus should be on finding a good experience that is ideally at least loosely related to what you want to do. (i.e. if you want to study neuropsychology...a social psych lab studying romantic relationships is probably not the best bet). Obviously yes - it would be even more ideal if you found someone doing TBI research. However, if everything else works, I'd say to jump on the opportunity and do so happily. You are better off getting good experience in a tangentially related lab than mediocre experience in exactly what you want to do.
 
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I am currently a senior at NYU and will be graduating by the end of Spring 2017 term. My academic interest is to pursue a career as a clinical psychologist and further specializing in neuropsychology. However, before I apply to Ph.D. programs, I first would like to earn a master's degree and gain research experience in neuropsychology. I've already applied to the experimental psychology program at one of the CUNY schools. Additionally, in my correspondence with a clinical neuropsychologist at that particular CUNY school, I was offered a research position at Albert Einstein Medical School to work in her neuropsychology laboratory. This professor also happened to be one of my advisers when I was part of a neuroscience project at that school.

The problem here is, although her research work is interesting, and she does incredible research work on dementia and Alzheimer's disease, I am primarily interested in traumatic brain injury and developmental psychopathology from a neuropsychological perspective. Now my question to you is: What should I do? Do I accept her offer and pursue my master's degree working on my thesis based on her current work? Would Ph.D. programs consider the fact that despite my research experience in neuropsychology being outside of trauma, I still would like to pursue a research laboratory working with traumatic brain injuries?

I apologize for asking too many questions. Thank you and enjoy your day.

Have you tried mount Sinai on the east side (in the 90's): http://icahn.mssm.edu/research/brain-injury
I believe I interviewed with a coordinator from there who said there might be research positions opening up soon. Its always worth checking out and while I don't think that you'd be penalized for past experiences not matching exactly if you chose to go ahead with your contact it varies by program/POI.

ETA: Maybe Dr. Voelbel at NYU?
 
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Have you tried mount Sinai on the east side (in the 90's): http://icahn.mssm.edu/research/brain-injury
I believe I interviewed with a coordinator from there who said there might be research positions opening up soon. Its always worth checking out and while I don't think that you'd be penalized for past experiences not matching exactly if you chose to go ahead with your contact it varies by program/POI.

ETA: Maybe Dr. Voelbel at NYU?

Thanks for that information! I will check it out.
 
I agree that being engaged in neuropsychological research, whatever it may be, is the key right now. Aging/dementia is a great entry to neuropsychology, as it will introduce you (more so than other areas) to issues of differential diagnosis, a cornerstone of neuropsych practice. Also, there are many, many more aging researchers than TBI researchers, so this could help when it comes time to apply to grad school (doubt your eventual program list will contain only TBI labs). Again, this would not close the door to pursuing other populations- you'll just have to craft your statement carefully to make sure you draw connections between your experiences and your graduate goals. I don't really see that being a big problem.
 
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