Research Focus

[ahpsych]

Hi All,

I am a long time lurker and have gotten some great advice and food for thought on this forum. I have a question about my own situation. I am hoping to apply to grad school for clinical psychology next year. I have a year of research experience in eating disorders/weight management, and a semester in anxiety disorders. Currently, I have a post bac job as an RA doing research on obesity in children. Both my current job and my year of research in ED during college were with very respectable people in the field of ED/obesity, and I feel like I will get good letters of recommendation.

While I certainly want to focus on obesity/eating, my interests lie broadly in the field of health psychology. I'm interested in the intersection of physical and mental health (which is why obesity and depression/ED and anxiety have been of particular interest to me). My question is this: have I pigeonholed myself into only being able to apply to POIs with a very specific ED/obesity focus? If I wanted to branch out to study chronic illnesses in general (and not just focus on obesity), could I do that and have any chance of getting into the programs, or should I be looking for yet another RA position to make my resume LESS specific? That sounds like a silly question, but I'm not sure where to go from here.

Thanks for your help!

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[ResearchGirlie]

Hi All,

I am a long time lurker and have gotten some great advice and food for thought on this forum. I have a question about my own situation. I am hoping to apply to grad school for clinical psychology next year. I have a year of research experience in eating disorders/weight management, and a semester in anxiety disorders. Currently, I have a post bac job as an RA doing research on obesity in children. Both my current job and my year of research in ED during college were with very respectable people in the field of ED/obesity, and I feel like I will get good letters of recommendation.

While I certainly want to focus on obesity/eating, my interests lie broadly in the field of health psychology. I'm interested in the intersection of physical and mental health (which is why obesity and depression/ED and anxiety have been of particular interest to me). My question is this: have I pigeonholed myself into only being able to apply to POIs with a very specific ED/obesity focus? If I wanted to branch out to study chronic illnesses in general (and not just focus on obesity), could I do that and have any chance of getting into the programs, or should I be looking for yet another RA position to make my resume LESS specific? That sounds like a silly question, but I'm not sure where to go from here.

Thanks for your help!

I don't think you've pigeonholed yourself. You just need to sell in your essays why your interested in what you say you are.

The health psych field is booming so I think you are in a great position to sell yourself.

 

[ahpsych]

Thanks, ResearchGirlie. I know how important research match is, but it's hard to know exactly how specific you need to be...

 

[ResearchGirlie]

Thanks, ResearchGirlie. I know how important research match is, but it's hard to know exactly how specific you need to be...

For applications I think it's most important to tell the story of why you match rather than having experience in the exact research that you want to do. Now this might be different in some areas such as neuroscience, but I think overall faculty realize that your interests change and that your previous experiences open up possible new interests.

It would be great if you can think of what in your current research led you to whatever it is you are interested now.