What can I do for experience as an undergraduate?

[Elayouby]

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Okay so heres my situation. I'm a freshman in my second semester, and I'm majoring in psychology. I've managed to get this sort of internship with my psych 101 professor (I work as a research assistant under her). From what I understand, experience is always a good thing and I just wanted to know if I could do more? And what I should be doing next? Ultimately, I need some guidance. All responses are greatly appreciated! 😀

 

[undecidedman]

Take advantage of trying to do different tasks. You can do different things like working with data analysis, gathering data, coding academic articles, searching for grant opportunities, etc.. Do not be afraid to try a bit of everything to get a feel for what you might like or don't. Take advantage of the graduate students in the lab, ask them how they decided to be a graduate student, ask them if they can help you with your c.v., and start talking about possible research posters/papers (though not until you get some footwork in the lab i'd say).



Do you know what the lab responsibilities are and what the topic of research is?

 

[Ettevi05]

You can also try to do work during the summer on youth camps for at-risk children, work for a lab that interests you, volunteer in a hospital, etc. It all depends on what you ultimately want to work in.

 

[zensouth]

Sometimes you can spin the research you are helping with into a 'Senior Capstone Project', which is sorta like a thesis but at the bachelor's level. Your prof could help you with this, but it would likely entail doing a lit review and proposing a research study, possibly even conducting said study. Also, try to get yourself on poster presentations, publications, etc.

 

[Eeveepony]

What helped me was my 4yrs assisting in Adapted Aquatics. Adapted Aquatics is aquatic based physical therapy for the intellectually and physically disabled.

I actually became head TA for the department and now I teach my own clinics and handle pretty much everything. Not only was it good for hands on clinical experience, but I gained over 2000 hours of volunteer/clinical volunteer hours, excellent experience and 5 different awards and scholarships for grad school. If your school has something similar, you may want to look into it.

Also, TA everywhere you can. Some schools will pay you but it's excellent for recommendation letters and teaching experience.

 

[ArmyPsych]

It's great that you're getting this type of experience early on, especially if you would like to pursue a research related career. Looking forward, as you gain more experience in the field, make sure you tailor your research experiences to your professional interests.

As far as grad school applications go, I've heard from former mentors that they've had amazing applicants, but they had no research experience in the area they purportedly wanted to study.

 

[Elayouby]

This is great. I really appreciate the information everyone! And ultimately, i'm aiming towards clinical psychology. As of now, I am working along with an adjunct at school. I just run subjects for her, and we go over data together. She tries to teach me everything she can along the way, and I appreciate the position and all that we're doing. I just wanted to know what I should be doing for the future. Now a few questions. What is a CV? What's a poster presentation? And how can I find something to work in that can relate to my interest in clinical work? Oh, and I don't know if this was already assumed from "adjunct" but she's also a doctoral candidate. Anyway, thanks for the responses everyone. Sorry for replying so late, I've been caught up in school work.

 

[Member012345678]

A CV is your Curriculum Vitae....it is your academic resume. It shows all of the labs you've worked in, related places of employment, degrees earned, honors and awards you've earned, and poster presentations and/or publications you've gotten. There are lots of websites out there that can help you write and hone your CV.

A poster presentation is exactly what it sounds like. If a person has been working on a research study, they can submit the findings to research conferences in the forms of either oral presentations, where you present your study for 10 min or so to a room of people in our field and then give them time to ask questions and pick apart your research, or poster presentations, which is where you have a large poster with the details of your research on it & you stand around with other people presenting posters while our peers attending the conference walk around and look at the posters, ask us questions, and critique our study. Both oral and poster presentations at conferences look great on CVs (however getting authorship on a publication usually looks best) in part because it is typical for your research to have to pass peer review before getting accepted for presentation. On a CV, national (or international) conferences look best, regional are next best, and state conferences are often weighed least however any acceptance at any conference looks really good and also gives you lots of useful experience.

As far as finding something to work on that relates to your interests.....look at the web pages and CVs of faculty at your school and see if any of them are doing work that interests you. If not, scope out faculty in other departments (sociology, medicine, anthropology, social work, woman and/or gender studies, etc) and see if anyone is doing work that relates to your interests. If so, send them an email and see if you can meet to talk with them about the possibility of you helping them with their research. Also, it may be useful to see if your dept allows undergrads to complete a research thesis. This would give you lots of hands on experience and will allow you to make sure that conducting research (and thereby pursuing a clinical degree) is really what you want to do.

Does this make sense and/or help?

 

[Elayouby]

That was really helpful, and yes it made sense. Thank you!

 

[Member012345678]

If you have more questions, just shout 🙂