TenaciousBushLeaper

I can only speak for UPenn, as the program director explicitly told me in person that they are just fine with psychology, so long as it isn't clinical psychology. As for Yale, I would advise Psychology majors to not apply to that PREP program unless they've had the standard science courses (chem, physics, calc, bio), both program directors for the PREP program at Yale have told me they will more likely than not, not consider applicants who don't have these prerequisites (because they admitted a psych major who didn't have the pre reqs and that person did not do well in the program)

Yea, actually both places would pay enough to live off of.

At the brand name school I'd be working with a postdoc, with the multiple projects the postdoc is involved it, I'd do things such as write scripts(computer programs) for data analysis and recruit participants, and provide my input on what's going on in regards to those projects. At the R2 school (it's the same school I graduated from, and have been involved in research there) I'll be working with the PI of the lab to do similar things, write scripts for data analysis, recruit participants, run participants in the experiments, general lab stuff (ordering materials, IRB stuff, etc,), but I'd also pretty much be leading a project that big name researchers were working on in the 1980s - 1990s but stopped working on because the computing power wasn't yet available (and the programs they were running just didn't work). We finally got one of those programs to work and now we also have a large supercomputer cluster to run the models. On another note, the brand name school would be paying me more.

I have an opportunity to be involved in research at two different universities, one is an R2 school, while the other is a well known, high ranked school in Massachusetts, what does everyone have to say about how working at one or the other might play into graduate school admissions?

The real question is what exactly will you use the computer for? What type of analysis? For example if you're using it for machine learning or brain imaging data processing then you'll want more computing power, else you're probably more than fine with 8GB RAM.

Care to share why? I'm rather interested in this line of thought.

Imagine the situation where an applicant doesn't do so great ( letter grade of C ) in an important class ( important in the sense that graduate admissions committees may weight ones performance in this class more heavily ), so instead of retaking the course, the student signs up for an equivalent course on coursera, pays for the certificate of completion, mentions this in the SOP, and attaches a copy of the certificate along with the application (whether this is possible or not, just imagine! lol). Has anyone ever heard of someone do this? What do you think about it? Also, maybe we can discuss the implications it brings along for online learning in general to academia. A few things to consider, a good number of the courses on coursera are taught by individuals belonging to "elite" or "brand name" institutions. Coursera does not provide a letter grade (at least I think not, please correct me if I'm wrong). There is always the very real possibility that one or a number of the professors on the admissions committee(s) has/have taught a course there themselves!

Here's what you do.... you program a bot to search the dark corners of the interwebs, looking for key words you've already pre - specified. Make it a point system (you'll have to specific how these points are distributed), and tell it to return the matches in hierarchal class types (best fit, a little less - best, ect..). Be sure to factor in your GPA, GRE, (potential) institution rank.... As an alternative I suggest the post above (mb712)

Do you have any research experience? If you expect to get into ivy league schools or any reputable program to work towards a PhD in psychology, you'll need some research experience. A program director at Yale had told me that a year of research experience is enough so long as everything else is in order (GRE, GPA, SOP, LORs)

Well that's good to hear. I had assumed I wasn't chosen on the basis of not hearing from anyone from the PREP program.

I have been up for over 24 hours, now I have to go fail an exam, then interact with some a holes. Side note; did not know I could be this kranky

It sounds like he/she has found another D/V

Thesis advisor and lab manager are both getting on my last nerve.

There are some people who will never accept "soft" sciences or social sciences for the simple reason that it is very difficult to come up with any laws or properties from them(as opposed to say physics or mathematics). At the start of my thesis (my undergraduate background is in psychology) I realized just how difficult it would be to have a sound experiment that I was satisfied with. Why? because there are just so many possibilities for things to go wrong when you're dealing with people, you can't control everything on the same level as you would be able to, if you were a biologist or chemist or a physicist. So naturally, mathematicians or physicist or what have you may come up and say "do you know how difficult it is to really prove something? and we have so much more control over our experiments", personally, I can clearly see why people may be skeptical about social sciences. That being said, I do think the social sciences are in fact a science unlike our friend Richard Feynman here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZaw0KVMl-o

To the OP & to others, as an undergraduate who's about to finish up his BA I'm curious, if you could go back in time with the knowledge you have now, what would you have done upon graduation(with a BA or BS)?

At my university at the graduate level, women dominate (speaking in terms of the number of graduate students) every area of study(social,neuroscience,developmental,cognitive)

Something to maybe think about here, it seems the country (USA) as a whole is leaning more towards 2 year colleges and, "technical skill" jobs. If more students out of high school decide this to be their path then 4 year institutions will suffer and will begin to adapt. Part of that adaptation may be not having nearly as many or maybe at some point any TT positions. Disclaimer: this is purely speculation on my part.

Magic the Gathering, EDH

My tip is to find an activity that helps you maintain your health that you enjoy and stick to it. I weight train for strength & I genuinely enjoy lifting heavy (on the bench press, deadlift, and squat). This helps in that I don't have to say to myself "have to go to the gym to look good" but rather I say "I want to really hit this personal record on this lift today", and as a consequence it helps me look good/stay healthy. In terms of diet, I've always used discipline here to help me get along.

I wonder about this. It's sorta like attempting to reconcile an explicit decision and thought with another decision we've already made, where the two aren't in line with one another. Kinda of like when I try to start writing a paper way before it's due but I know in the back of my head that I can get it done within a few hours so I end up not taking action on the good advice I've tried to give myself. Good point! I hadn't considered how the opinions of others may interact with these decision.

Amen brother.