neuropsych76

It is good to gather background information before you jump into a new field so you are taking a first good step! It seems like lots of people want to jump into psychology without even knowing what it is first. Here's my advice based on your post: First, I would try to volunteer in some clinical psychology related job. A suicide hotline, shadowing a psychologist, a hospital, ect. Just to get more of a feel of the clinical psych field and you will be able to meet and talk to many people currently in the profession. Also, continue to read about clinical psych on your own time. I suggest this site for learning about clinical psych stuff http://forums.studentdoctor.net/forumdisplay.php?f=57 Then, you would need to take some more psych classes like research methods, abnormal psych even for masters programs. And yes doing well on the psych GRE would help a lot since you were not a psych major (its pretty much wrote memorization so i can't really offer many tips on it since I didn't take it). If you want to practice psychotherapy and see patients then I would suggest a masters program. I can't give advice on specific programs but honestly, the clinical psych field is going through some tough times and masters leveled clinicians seem to be having comparable job prospects (perhaps better) and earnings to PhD level clinicians. There was a study showing how the level of training doesn't make much of a difference for psychotherapy outcome. So insurance companies don't want to pay PhD level people more for the same product. That should get you started. I was interested in clinical psych for awhile but I got more into research and now I'll be starting grad school in experimental psych next fall. Good luck!!

Welcome to the forums! I think your resume is pretty solid but it's really hard to estimate admission chances in general for grad school. If you clearly identify your research interests and match up well with the faculty you are applying to work with then I think you will have a good shot. But again, its really hard to predict if you'll be accepted or not. You just have to prepare as much as you can and it looks like you are doing so Good luck!!

So in undergrad I joined a couple organizations like The Association for Psychological Science and the Society for Neuroscience because of conferences they had. But I was wondering how much value joining professional organizations has in grad school? Do most grad students still only join organizations for discounted prices on conferences? Or is it actually good for other things such as networking and applying for grants? Is anyone here a member of organizations like APA, SfN, or any other psychology organization? Thanks!

If you bought them online in advance they would probably be cheaper than buying them at your school when the term begins. During my undergrad years, I would buy my books early and maybe read the first chapter or two before school started. Anything more than that is superfluous IMO.

Yes, I finally made the top 10!! It's been a goal of mine since I joined TGC!

I think I joined about 5 during my undergrad mostly because of I attended difference conferences. As an undergrad, joining professional conferences didn't seem to have a whole lot of value outside of the conferences. Maybe that changes in grad school...

You can check on sites like apartmentratings.com like you mentioned so I would definitely browse the internet first. As far as paying someone to look for apartments for you, it might be easier to see if you know any other grad students also looking for apartments to ask them what their experiences were. Or ask current grad students if they like where they live/lived. Finding an apartment is hard, I'm going through the same struggle!

I wouldn't worry about it too much. Most professors are open minded enough to understand that interests change and people like to expand their horizons. It's not like your his grad student and your getting a PhD in perception research, you're just working in his lab. They might contact him and if he is uncertain why you want to apply to the mental health clinic that could be bad for your application. I would talk to him and say something like you like perception research but you are interested in clinical work as well so you want to volunteer to try it out. He should be understanding. Good luck!

I haven't started grad school yet but I've heard about snobs and pompousness in academia. I think the best way to avoid any snobbish person is just not stoop to their level and give them the attention they crave. I worked at an fMRI lab at an ivy league school last summer and sat in on a neuroscience class there. I was casually talking to this kid next to me and I told him I wasn't from the ivy league school and was doing an internship there. As soon as he knew I wasn't one of "them" he wasn't nearly as friendly and stopped talking to me lol That would be my most relevant snob story

It really depends on your others stats, GRE scores, research experience, LOR's ect. I'm guessing a 3.5 masters GPA won't kill your chances by itself.

I agree with Bison. Temp jobs seem to be a good bet and it will help your chances if you dont tell them you are leaving so early. I was turned down by many jobs quickly because I told them I had to leave in August. Finally I found a nice easy summer job (see other post ) It is a tough situation to find a summer job before grad school. You have at least a Bachelors degree but it doesn't really matter. You can be so qualified in one area but not have a chance of getting a low paying summer job.

Thank you guys for the replies Yes, I would like the mini golf job more. And yes I would feel like I'd be wasting an opportunity by not taking the other "harder" job. I am coming strait from undergrad to grad school so that's why I was hoping for a nice break in between. The "harder" job would pay more. It would pay $10 compared to I think $7.25 at the mini golf job. So yeah, I would consider that significant enough to influence my decision. I have an interview at the "harder" job next week so I'll learn more about it then, which will hopefully make the decision easier. But I'm thinking unless I'm learning skills which are directly useful for grad school, it probably wouldn't be worth it. It's rather odd though, if this was any other summer I'd be psyched to have this opportunity. But now since I've been accepted into grad school, I wish I didn't have it...

Hello all, I'm in an interesting situation here. I've been applying for some summer jobs before grad school and I finally got a hit. I would be working at a mini golf course making minimum wage doing pretty easy work. Honestly, this would be a perfect, relaxing, a convenient job for me. So I was pretty content. Then I just received a call from another place I applied. I'd be working as a psychology experimental software technician. I'd have to wake up at about 6am every day and drive a lot further to get to work. I'm guessing the work itself would be great preparation for grad school stuff (though much more grinding then the mini golf job). This would have been an awesome experience if it was like one or two summers ago. But now, I'm worried that I'm going to burn myself out if I take this job and go into grad school with less enthusiasm despite (maybe) being more prepared... Would I be stupid to turn down the more relevant position? yes, I'd be working on software that I'd use in grad school, but there is no guarantee it would be directly useful for what i would be doing. I keep hearing how stressful the first year of grad school is and I'm worried taking this position might be detrimental since i'd be working a lot right up to when I start grad school. I just read through this post and I know it makes me sound pretty lame lol. oh well. I was just wondering if anyone has any perspective on such a situation. Thanks

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haha i might, but i don't have a webcam right now. it seems like a fun thing to do and is good practice for real lectures!

mass panic

I enjoyed it Keep up the good work!

steering wheel

Wow, I'm sorry you had to go through that... I wish I could give you some advice but I'm mostly just sympathizing. Have you talked to this professor much already? Does he seem like it was an honest mistake or is he kind of a jerk? If its the latter I would consider not having him as a mentor

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I don't think there are too many people on here with their completed PhD. But I think current grad student advice is just as valuable for this question. I agree that the AP stats class would probably be more important for research psychology. You'll likely only need psychology stats and calculus in college for PhD programs but the more quantitative classes the better. I only had calc and psych stats in college and I'm heading off an experimental psych phd program focusing on quantitative neuroscience. So, once you complete the basic math classes, you can do pretty much anything in psychology

I've been wondering the same thing... I'm sure it varies a lot for each professor but I've been trying to figure out my graduate advisor's email signature behavior already so I can be prepared for it So far I've concluded that when she writes her full name, she is in a good mood and the email is happy/important. Example: when she emailed me i was accepted into the program, when i formally accepted. An abbreviated writing of her name means she is either busy or the email isn't that important/ or just has a neutral tone. Example: When we bounce around some research ideas, emailing about basic program information Finally, just a single initial means she is really busy or didn't particularly like my last email. Example, when it was finals week there, when i proposed a research idea that wasn't all that feasible... I could be way off base with my conclusions but its fun to think about

TGC is not as busy post April 15th so I decided to make a completely superfluous post. It was pretty fun

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