Will non-research job hurt chances of getting into PhD program?

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rosie712

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I am graduating from college in May and am taking a year off before applying to PhD programs. I am interested in child psychology, specifically child trauma psych and hope to be a practicing psychologist in the future. I am much more interested in working with clients than doing research, so I have been looking into social service-type jobs such as foster care casework for my gap year. Will following this path instead of doing research hurt my chances of getting into grad school?

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Throughout undergrad (and the year before applying) I worked in non-research settings (e.g., psychiatric technician, child advocate) but I also kept up involvement in research labs as a post-bacc RA. I live in an area with few (if ANY) "research jobs" for those seeking research experience. I juggled both work and RA responsibilities, and the payoff was huge. I accepted an offer from a fully funded PhD program this cycle. Having said that (and just completing an app cycle) you want to continue to build your research experience - this is so vital. If you are planning to apply to PhD programs in clinical psychology, you're going to be competing against students with posters, publications, and experience with data collection/analysis. While I actually felt as though my clinical experience helped me stand out, I only think it did so because I had a substantial amount of research experience to go along with it!


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I think that working in the lab at least part time would be very useful. There are some journals that will accept articles from post-BA students, I think it can be beneficial as well. For example: http://jeps.efpsa.org/
 
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