gnomechomsky22

I have been printing out my PDFs and taking notes but it is just far too costly. I use my school's laser printer for as much of it as I can, but still I have many more pages to read than the page allowance I am allotted and its 10 cents a page after that which adds up week after week. Between the print lab cost and my ink jet, I have invested a small fortune. Any recommendations for a particular e reader? Or are they all kind of the same?

This is my first semester in graduate school and I'm already struggling. I had to give my first presentation on Monday and I completely tanked. I was supposed to present an article and I understood the article, made a great powerpoint and tied everything together. I really did spend a lot of time preparing; however, it was clear my presentation was a disaster. I was so humiliated- I spoke too quickly, was shaking and instantly forgot everything as soon as I got up in front of the class. We have to do a group presentation in the near future and I am worried. My classmates are all part of the same program, but I am enrolled in a different program. It is intimidating because they all already know one another and I doubt anyone will want me in their group now. I felt like crying afterwards. The presentation is worth 15% of my grade. I am concerned. Should I email my professor and ask for his advice as to whether I should stay in the course? I understand that part of graduate school entails practicing tenacity and sticking difficult things out, but this has bothered me so much that I have had nightmares about it.

Hi there! My advice to you is to speak with some professors and graduate students once you start your coursework. I would hold off on declaring a minor for now since you're just starting. Minoring in psychology is pointless if you are already majoring in it (since they are usually the same foundational classes) and the college I attended would not let you minor/major in the same subjects. After taking a few psychology electives, you probably will have a good idea of what you are REALLY interested in and sometimes what you are originally interested in is not what you actually want to study/research. The others are correct in saying CS is a really useful minor; however, CS classes can be extremely challenging. Its best to really take an inventory of what you like and apply that towards your minor. Minoring in CS just because you think it will help you get into graduate school is not a good idea. Plus, there are often a lot of pre-reqs you have to take in order to complete higher level courses so you would need to factor in the cost of an extra set of unrelated coursework to your major. I would suggest taking an introductory CS class first before you declare a minor in it. Hope this helps! Good luck

Theoretically I/O psychology overlaps slightly with Human Factors. I applied for any/all research positions I am eligible for and I have been plugging away at Human Factors positions (but most of the labs are looking for people with backgrounds in programming, EE and CS to run their websites and program certain parts of projects). They already seem to have enough RAs and there is not much turnover until they graduate. Thanks for your input. I have asked a few grad students and professors, a few of them have offered me the same advice, so I think being heavily involved in research will help regardless.

Yeah I think its completely fascinating and there's so much work you can do with it, but for whatever reason, clinical and I/O are so much more popular where I currently attend school.

I have a BS in Psychology from the school I currently attend as a grad certificate student. I am intending to apply to the Human Factors Ph.D. program at this school this fall, but I don't have any research in that particular area. I have some research experience in I/O but it is extraordinarily difficult to secure a volunteer position in the Human Factors labs. I have tried applying, emailing grad students asking if they knew of any open positions, etc. but I have had no luck. Is my entire application doomed if I have no undergraduate research in the field I am intending to apply to? Should I forgo the Ph.D. idea and try to get my master's degree instead?

I would suggest trying to talk to grad students in both fields. I worked with a graduate student in the I/O lab and while I liked it, I decided Engineering Psychology/Human Factors psychology is the direction I want to go in. I would read as much about the subjects as you can and definitely try to get a position with an undergrad lab. Any and all experience you can get in the lab will be super helpful. As for the books, most of them are textbooks; however, check out "The Atomic Chef" for human factors. I have yet to come across a book for I/O that wasn't a textbook. I would browse around amazon and the library.

I recently started graduate school as a certificate student. I am attending classes full time this semester and although its only been a week since classes started, I am already starting to feel a disparity between my study habits in undergrad and the habits required to keep up with grad school full time. This is my first semester handling heavy scholarly/journal article reading assignments (I had some brief assignments in undergrad that were similar but not nearly as dense or difficult). I am a psychology/cognitive sciences student right now. I graduated Summer 2012 from undergrad and I intend on applying to a Human Factors Ph.D. program this fall. I wanted to get a feel for grad school, clarify my goals, gain some further research experience and really take some time to reflect before I applied. I've noticed that not many of my peers handwrite their notes. In my classes there are not a lot of diagrams, most lectures are presentations of pp slides and two of my courses are seminar style, so it makes more sense to take notes on my computer. I was wondering if there's a really good program that helps keep digital notes organized? I've never really used my laptop to take notes in undergrad so I'm having a hard time transitioning. Also, almost all of my reading assignments are PDFs and I absolutely hate reading long articles on the computer. I've tried printing them out, which really works best for me, but its a huge waste of paper and not really that cost effective (I have about 3-5 reading assignments for each class every week) and a tiny inkjet printer. Any suggestions on how to organize and handle reading/note taking? I feel like making folders for everything just makes it hard for me to access things and Microsoft word files take so long for me to set them up the way I want them to look. Do programs/apps like Evernote or Notebook work well?

I am currently a cog sci certificate student but I'm applying this fall for Human Factors...even though it is a well known program at my school, it is definitely not as popular as I/O or Clinical.

I just graduated in August with my B.S. in Psychology. I had a job lined up in Human Resources but it ultimately fell through. I've tried applying everywhere in my area (for example at banks for teller/collections positions, admin assistant positions, retail management, etc.) but I've had absolutely no luck. I'm contemplating going to graduate school; I realize grad school is not something to be taken lightly and applied to on a whim. I have always planned to go for a PhD but I was hoping to gain some real world work experience prior to applying to grad school. I'm interested in Industrial/Organizational Psychology and Human Factors Psychology I have internship/research experience but I have not yet taken the GRE and my GPA is not exactly strong at a 3.3 (I was pre-med until Junior year when I switched to Psychology so my Psych/Major GPA is higher at a 3.6). Any advice or input on what I can do? I've been looking for serving jobs/min wage jobs at this point, but I'm really tired of waiting tables and would prefer to find more valuable work experience even in an unrelated field. I also have the option of pursuing a certificate in cognitive sciences and taking human factors or I/O electives to gain "education experience." Basically the program would allow me to get my foot in the door, take some graduate coursework, meet important graduate faculty and be a little bit more competitive when it comes to applying for a master's/PhD program. Certificate programs at my school are eligible for fin aid. The certificate is merely to prepare me for the PhD program and point me in the direction I need to go in-i.e. I will take all Human Factors electives to meet Human Factors faculty so that I can have significant and relevant letters of recommendation. But in the long run if I am only taking out loans for 2 semesters for the certificate and then able to obtain other forms of aid for graduate school then I can potentially reduce the amount of debt I would obtain through just applying to grad school now with a sub-par GPA and ok, but not necessarily great or significant faculty recommendations. Any ideas or input? Note: I'm not going into this blind with no idea of what to expect. I have done the research about the requirements to get into grad school and I also attended the grad school fair at my college and spoke with professors/representatives. I did want to go to grad school eventually, just was hoping to pay down my undergrad loans first.