neuropsych76

haha i'm glad i'm not the only one who was torn between different psych programs! i was still considering clinical psych as late as September/October this year and started to fill some clinical applications out but then i just exclusively focused on experimental psych. congratulations on getting into a great school though

I can think of very few cases were someone left the lab but stayed on to do additional work, so yes, it might be the case if they're going to redo the analysis and have someone else do it that you would lose authorship. 
 
But either way, I think you're being overly concerned about something that hasn't happened- your title is "removed as a coauthor because I switched labs", but you haven't been removed yet- you just think you might be. 
 
So go in person to talk to your advisor about redoing the analysis. Don't rely on hearsay. See what they say, and go from there. 
 
Honestly, if you were going to be a lower author, it's not going to be a huge loss on your CV anyway. If you were a co-author, maybe, but you usually on talk about being a co-author on a two-author paper where both contributed relatively evenly. For your CV, what really matters is first author papers, with some 2nd and 3rd authorships being OK, but not hugely important.

Just a suggestion, to be taken with a grain of salt...
 
What is the sociology department at your CURRENT school like? It might be "easier" (read: feasible/smoother) to switch departments within your school than to apply anew to programs. You might want to talk to a grad administrator that you trust to see if (s)he is aware of such movements having taken place in the past.
 
I mention this route as I know a colleague who recently switched into sociology, at the end of her third year, from criminology. She had a pretty solid justification: sociology was where she had to be to address her project as she had come to envision it. From what I understand, this move required some finessing (POI egos and all that), but she was able to arrive at a nice compromise with the School of Graduate Studies (she was able to "count" one qualifying exam and some methods training courses from crim, but had to commit to another 2nd-year methods course and a fresh ethics submission). While she switched departments, staying within the same School of Grad Studies helped to make the transition easier.
 
You strike me more as a thoughtful student than an "at risk" one (I know a few people in sociology of health and illness with psych backrounds and I personally have worked at intersections of health-policy, sociologists are a very interdisciplinary gorup). However, it is also possible that you've just got some cold feet. I don't want to patronize, but you need to look at some of the reasons that you are hesitating and honestly ascertain whether or not a major switch will help; like I said, my colleague framed the switch as something that HAD to be done to do justice to her research project (this has more focus and teeth than "just" wanting to change because your interests are shifting). A similar, focused, argument might be that you want to switch given that you recognize the difference between where Soc PhDs end up versus Psych-esque PhDs and you want to align your fate with the former. I'd look into a talk with a grad admin or someone at your SGS, to get a feel for how others have worked through such impasses.
 
Good luck!

It may not be what you're doing but your tone of voice and body language while doing it that is leading them to think you don't care about the material. That would be my guess, rather than all the examples you've given as to what it might be. It's probably something you don't notice but that they pick up on, in part because it might be really different from what they get in the class before or after yours. Regardless of the level of the material, you should make it sound and seem like you're interested in it in tone/attitude, as well as in what you actually say.
 
As for the comments that you don't know how to teach, I hate to be a downer here but it's probably true. How much teaching experience have you had? What kind of pedagogical training have you had? I think this is one area where academics actually fail to act like academics. They don't seek out the experts (university teaching center) or follow the best practices identified in the research. There are entire journals dedicated to teaching, many of which focus on higher education. For example, College Teaching, Journal of College Science Teaching, Journal of College Teaching and Learning, Chemistry Education Research and Practice, and so many more. If you don't want to reach out to the teaching center (which you and every grad student should, especially if you will be teaching in the future and/or will be pursuing academic positions), then start by looking through these journals for ideas on how you can better handle what the rote memorization or other less fun/interesting parts of class. More generally, consult Google too for tips on how to make those just as fun as everything else.
 
I hope this helps. The truth is that grad students aren't given much training when they're thrown into the classroom. I know I wasn't. And, it was only after taking my university's college teaching course (note, I'd already taken the departmental course long before this) that I realized how insane it is that we'd totally reach out to the expert on X in our department but we don't reach out to the experts on teaching on our campuses. These people have years of experience, Ph.D.s in teaching, and lots of collective experience (gathered from talking to those that seek them out), which you can and should take advantage of!

How I stay motivated is getting out of the lab and doing what it is I love to do.
 
You and I seem to have similar interests and personalities: we both like methodology, and we both like communicating science to others.  Your dreams seem similar to mine as well!  I do like being a producer of research, but at a smaller scale than would be expected of me at an R1.  And I would rather communicate to the general public about healthcare science than to other scientist in my field.
 
So to give myself a more well-rounded experience, here are the things I've done:
 
-Worked as a hall director for residential life (this was somewhat unrelated to science, but I did get to interact with undergrads on a regular basis, advise them, and get experience in the student affairs side of education).
-Judged the New York City Science & Engineering Fair
-Joined the women in science group at my campus, which sponsors fun sciency stuff including a day to get middle school girls interested in science
-Taught a summer program in my field for two years, designed to get undergraduates excited about my research
-Served on advanced grad student panels giving advice and mentorship to less advanced students in the department
-Had a corporate internship one summer, to decide whether I really wanted to leave academia and work in a corporate environment (I liked it, and it let me know that I could leave academia.  I'm going to try to make it work first, but I know that there's a whole other world out there that I would enjoy in case I get tired or bored).
-Statistical consulting, which I really love.  It gives me the opportunity to help other people with their science, learn about other areas of science and teach people statistics.
-I currently work in an empirical research lab, that helps undergraduates use scientific data and quantitative reasoning in their classwork and research.
 
I also have a grad student in my cohort who just published her first book about popular science and is currently working on a second one - she published the first book shortly after she finished her PhD here.  She's also written for several magazines and newspapers, including the New Yorker, the Times and the Boston Globe.  I've had other friends in grad school write for HuffPo, the Times, Science Mag, the Chronicle...one dude from my department is currently a professor at a top 5 school in my field, but while he was here he wrote a regular column for the Huffington Post.  If you want to write about popular science, DO IT!  Don't wait until you've graduated to do so.  Start off freelancing - contact news outlets and see if they would be interested.  You could make a little side money and do what you really love!
 
P.S.: I hit a wall in my 3rd year, too.  You kind of have to work through it a little; it takes a while to find your passion.  Once I started balancing out my science work with other stuff (related to science, but more public) I felt much happier.
 
P.P.S: I hear you on the methodology thing, but even as a methodologist you need to develop a substantive area.  It doesn't have to be one that you devote your entire life to, though; you just need to pick something that you could conceivably work within for the next 4-10 years (depending on whether you can make a shift in a postdoc).  Like you, I have broad interests; I have settled within an area that I actually care a whole lot about and am passionate about, but there are other things I could work on that are also "oooh, shiny."  Once you get tenure you can do whatever you want, but it may behoove you to develop a substantive area or two that you can work within to publish.  As silly as it is in academia, you at least initially need to be "known for" something.
 
Also, you may want to aim at mid-ranked to less-well-known SLACs, comprehensive universities and baccalaureate colleges.  The reason I suggest that is because the top SLACs often have 2/2 or 3/2 teaching loads because they expect you to be doing research - maybe not quantity, but quality.  If you go to a comprehensive master's university or a more mid-ranked SLAC, though, the teaching load will be heavier (3/3 to 4/4) and the research expectations will be lower, which will free you to focus primarily on teaching if you want.  The downside, of course, is that you will have less time for writing that popular book on cognitive neuroscience and less time for communicating science outside of the university.  So you have to decide what your priorities are and use that to help you select the kind of job you want.  Now is the perfect time to start thinking about it.

I actually just went to a conference at my university this past Friday on working in SLACs - what the lifestyle is like and how to be attractive to them.  I also really want to teach at a SLAC, so I was super excited to be there.  (I also went to a SLAC myself).
 
One of the major things they said was that you need to find a way to scale your research down to the SLAC size, including incorporating undergraduates and finding a way to do the research that you want to do with the resources available to you at your SLAC.  To that end, I think saying that you will collaborate with others who use an fMRI scanner - assuming that fMRI is central to your research and the only way that you can get it done - is a bad idea, unless the SLAC you are applying to has a consortium agreement with another large school that you know definitely has a scanner (examples might be Swarthmore, Haverford and Bryn Mawr with UPenn, or Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, Smith and Amherst with UMass-Amherst).  They want to know that you can independently conduct research and set up your own lab, and constant collaboration for ALL of your research is not a feasible plan of action to explain.
 
They also said that one of the common misconceptions about SLACs is that the faculty don't do research, or much of it.  They said that (especially at the most selective ones, like Oberlin, Swarthmore, Middlebury, Amherst, etc.) they are still expected to do research and spend 40-50% of their time on it, sometimes a bit more, because they are only teaching 2/2 or 3/2 loads.  It's just that the quantity of research is less.  But they still need 1-2 publications in peer-reviewed journals a year to get tenure, and those of us in the sciences are still expected to successfully obtain grant funding.  If you're aiming for a more middling or lower ranked SLAC the expectations are also less (maybe a pub every other year) but they are also teaching heavier loads (anything from 3/3 to 4/4).  However, the conference I went to was for selective/top small colleges, so they spoke more about the experience there.  It really was a balance, not all teaching.
 
So they say it's a mistake to apply to a SLAC (at least in the top 100ish) and assume or act like you won't do research or don't like research, because they are very much looking for scholars and scientists and they want evidence that you will be productive.  It's not just helpful; it's required, and you're required to explain in your application materials how you will include it in your research and incorporate undergrads.
 
I also asked about the teaching experience thing.  As a psychologist I've had a variety of experiences, which ranged from mostly being a grader all the way to preparing lectures, leading seminars and preparing assignments and exams...but I've never been the instructor of record for a whole class myself.  I likely won't have the experience before I apply, either (writing my dissertation now on a fellowship, and I'll be doing a research-based postdoc for the next two years).  The professors I talked to said that that was fine - of course they like to see instructor experience, but they've hired plenty of people without it, as long as you can talk in a compelling way about how your past experiences prepared you for teaching.  I also checked out recent hires at some of the top colleges and it seems like that's true - actually, most of the new hires in my field (psychology) didn't have experience teaching a full class themselves.  But almost all of them had research-based postdocs!
 
Actually, by perusing the CVs of those who got hired at top colleges it seems like many of them would've also been competitive for R1s, too.
 
How early are you in your program?  Can you develop another line of research/another interest that can be done at small LACs?  For example, since my interests are also methodological, I'm also using large national datasets in my research and I plan to have a line of research that is based primarily on large national datasets.  That way I also have some research to work with while I'm setting up my lab at a SLAC (I do longitudinal studies).

That is probably going to create difficulties for you. One aspect of (most) job applications, most certainly for any R1 TT job but also for liberal arts colleges is a statement about your future research interests. Teaching is indeed very important to liberal arts colleges, but these days there are enough strong candidates that they can also require a strong research portfolio for hiring and for tenure. This research will have somewhat of a different flavor than at R1 institutions because you'll be mostly involving undergraduates, rather than graduate students, in your research and you will therefore need to be a lot more independent -- but it's still a very important component of the profile of a hirable candidate.
 
Your future interests are supposed to grow out of your PhD work, and you'll spend some time during the application process thinking about how you might explain your dissertation (and other) research as fitting into a larger research program. If you will not be able to continue any of your current work at a certain school, that will certainly hurt your ability to publish and conduct research at a timely fashion there. You'll have to start over from scratch, and maybe even rethink your research program. Your past experiences will therefore not be a good indication of your potential to succeed in the future. That will mean, to most people, that you are not a good fit and hence a dangerous hire for that school. If you know that this is where you want to end up, I'd start thinking right now about how you might pitch your research so it can be relevant for the jobs you are interested in, and how some aspect of them can be carried on there. Then I'd get started on doing exactly that kind of research, so you can prove that you have the experience to successfully carry it out. I understand that this is very difficult to do, but if you are unable to turn yourself into someone who could fit in a liberal college environment and work with the resources you have there, I think you'll have a hard time getting hired. Sorry I don't have a better answer than that.

Can you network with folks who do have access to an fMRI, such that they collect the data, and y'all co-author? I would think even 1-2 pubs a year would be better than nothing. Also, e-mail some of your old profs at the LibArts school & ask what their tenure requirements are, then ask how that would work for you, given the potential future issue of not having an fMRI machine.

About your dog: I think that depends entirely on you and your program. I am in a social science program where the majority of my analysis and writing can be done from home, and I prefer to work from home or from a library (as opposed to my cube in the windowless cube farm). When I was taking classes I was generally there from 9-6 or so, but now that my coursework is finished I am rarely at the school itself. I go for meetings, seminars, interesting kinds of things and I do most of my work remotely. My time is verrry flexible, and if my building didn't prohibit it I would get a dog in a heartbeat. Another thing to keep in mind: a dog can be a great comfort when you're all stressed out over graduate school.

Advice?

Age:
-Don't feel like you have nothing to offer just because you are younger. I was 22 when I started graduate school. You got accepted to the program for a reason, and chances are you are just as equipped as any older students are to successfully complete the program, just in a different way.

-Your older classmates may be just as terrified as you. Talk to them. You have a lot in common. You are, after all, in the same place.

-You will feel like an imposter, like you don't belong, or like you are constantly behind. Or all three. It's normal. It will pass. (Well, sort of.) People of all ages go through this.

Adviser related:
-If you are lucky enough to get both research interest fit and personality fit perfect, congratulations! But sometimes, personality fit is more important than research interest fit as long as the research isn't too different. A great adviser is interested in your career development, likes you as a person, advocates for you, and wants to hear your ideas. Even if his or her research is quite different from yours, they may give you the autonomy to work on your own projects and just supervise you. A bad personality fit will drive you nuts, even if you love his or her research. Consider that when evaluating your adviser fit. (This will vary by field: research fit may be less important in the humanities, more important in the natural and physical sciences. Social sciences are somewhere in-between.)

-Don't be afraid to be straight up blunt with your adviser when it comes to asking about your progress. Ask if you are where you should be both academic program wise and getting-a-job-after-this-mess-wise.

-Be proactive. Advisers love when you draw up an agenda for your one-on-one meetings, come with talking points and progress to share, have concrete questions to ask, and have overall shown that you have been thoughtful and taken control of your own program. Of course, this won't immediately come easily to you, but in time you will work up to it. Every semester I type up my semester goals, and at the beginning of the year I type up annual goals. I show them to my adviser and we talk about whether they are too ambitious, or whether I need to revise them, and how I can meet them.

-Don't expect your adviser to actually know what courses you have to take to graduate. They will know about comprehensive exams and the dissertation, but a lot of professors don't really keep up with the course requirements, especially if their program is in flux. Get you a student handbook, and find out what you need to take. Map it out in a grid, and check off things when you finish them. Show this to your adviser every semester. You may have to explain how such and such class fills a requirement.

-Nobody loves you as much as you, except your mother. Keep this in mind as you take in advice from all sources, including your adviser. Your adviser is there to guide you, but that doesn't mean you have to do everything he says.

Studying:
-You will have to read more than you ever did before, in less time than you ever have before, and you will be expected to retain more than you ever have before. The way that you studied in undergrad may need some tweaking. Be prepared for this.

-Corollary: you may find that your methods change with age or interests or time. I preferred to study alone in college, but in grad school, I prefer to study in groups. It keeps me on task and the socialization keeps me motivated. You may find that you shift from being a more auditory learner to a visual learner or whatever.

-You will feel behind at first. This is normal.

-At some point you will realize that your professors don't actually expect you to read everything they assign you. This, of course, will vary by program, but there will be at least one class where the reading is actually impossible to do in one week. The point is to read enough that you know the major themes and can talk intelligently about them, and then pick some of the readings to really dig into and think more deeply about.

-For most programs, don't worry so much about grades. If you stay on top of your work and do what you're supposed to, you will probably get an A. How much grades matter varies from program to program. In some programs, a B is a signal that you are not up to par, and more than a few Bs will warrant a discussion with your adviser or the DGS. My program isn't like that - A, B, it's all meaningless. My adviser doesn't even know what my grades are. But at almost all programs, a C means you need to retake the course, and two Cs means you have to convince the DGS not to kick you out.

Extracurricular activity: What's that? No, seriously:
-A lot of your time will be unstructured. You will have coursework, but most grad classes meet once a week for two hours and you may have three classes. You may have meetings with your adviser every so often and some seminars or things to catch (like we have grand rounds and colloquia that are required), but a lot of time will be unstructured. However, since you have so much more work than you had in undergrad, you actually will have less free time than you had in undergrad. This may initially cause you great anxiety. It did for me. Some people love unstructured time, though. (I don't.)

-Because of this, you'll have to be planful about your non-grad school related stuff.

-TAKE TIME OFF. DO it. It's important for your mental health. However you do it doesn't matter. Some people work it like a 9-5 job. Some people take a day off per week (me) and maybe a few hours spread across the week. Some people work half days 7 days a week. However you do it, there needs to be a time when you say "f this, I'm going to the movies."

-Find your happy place, something that keeps you the you you were when you came in. I love working out. It gives me energy and I feel good. I stay healthy. I also love reading fiction, so sometimes I just curl up with a good book, work be damned. You have to give yourself permission to not think about work, at least for a couple of hours a week. You may also discover new hobbies! (I never worked out before I came to graduate school.)

-Your work will creep into all aspects of your life, if you let it. This is why I hate unstructured time. You will feel guilty for not doing something, because in graduate school, there is ALWAYS something you can do. ALWAYS. But since there will always be more work, there's no harm in putting it aside for tomorrow, as long as you don't have a deadline.

-You may need to reach outside of your cohort for a social life. None of my close friends are in my doctoral cohort. I've met master's students in my program, master's students in other programs, and I know a few non-graduate students I hang out with, too. Go to graduate student mixers. (If your university doesn't have any, organize some, if you like planning parties.) Join a student group that doesn't take up too much time. I had a doctoral acquaintance who kinda laughed at me because I joined some student groups other than the doctoral student one, and I was usually the only doctoral student in those groups, but I met some close friends (and future job contacts) and had a good time.

-DO NOT FEEL GUILTY FOR WANTING A LIFE OUTSIDE OF GRADUATE SCHOOL. This is paramount. This is important. You are a well-rounded, complex, multifaceted human being. NEVER feel bad for this. Everybody wants some kind of life outside of work. Yes, you may loooove your field, but that doesn't mean you want to do it all day long. Some other doctoral students, and perhaps professors, may make you feel bad about this. Don't let them. Just smile and nod. Then disappear when you need to.

Career:
-This is job preparation. Remember that from Day One. Always be looking for ways to enhance your skills. Read job ads and find out what's hot in your field, what's necessary, what's in demand. For example, in my field statistics and methods are a hot commodity, and they're not a passing fad. I happen to really like statistics and methods, so I have pursued that as a concentration of mine.

-Don't be afraid to take on volunteer work and part-time gigs that will give you skills that will be useful both inside academia and out, as long as it's not against your contract. Your adviser may be against it, but he doesn't have to know as long as it doesn't interfere with your work.

-If you want to work outside of academia - if you are even *considering* the possibility - please please definitely do the above. Even if you aren't considering it, consider the possibility that you won't get a tenure-track job out the box and that you may need to support yourself doing something else for a while. You will have to prove to employers that you have developed usable, useful skills and this is one of the easiest ways to do it. But don't overdo it - get the degree done.

-For more academic related ones - always look for opportunities to present and publish. Presentations look good on your CV. Publications look better. When you write seminar papers, wonder if you can publish them with some revision. Write your seminar papers on what you maybe think you may want to do your dissertation on. Even if you look at them three years later and think "these suck," you can at least glean some useful references and pieces from them. Discuss publication with your adviser early and often, and if you have the time and desire, seek out publication options with other professors and researchers. But if you commit to a project, COMMIT. You don't want to leave a bad impression.

-If you can afford it, occasionally go to conferences even if you aren't presenting. You can network, and you can hear some interesting talks, and you may think about new directions for your own research. You can also meet people who may tell you about jobs, money, opportunities, etc.

-Always try to get someone else to pay for conference travel before you come out of pocket. Including your adviser. Do not be shy about asking if he or she can pay. If he can't, he'll just say no. Usually the department has a travel fund for students, but often it's only if you are presenting.

-If you are interested in academia, you should get some teaching experience. There are two traditional ways to do this: TAing a course, and teaching as a sole instructor. If you can help it, I wouldn't recommend doing a sole instructor position until you are finished with coursework. Teaching takes a LOT of time to do right. You should definitely TA at least one course, and probably a few different ones. But don't overdo it, if you can help it, because again, it takes a LOT of time. More than you expect at the outset. If you are in the humanities, I think sole instructor positions are very important for nabbing jobs so when you are in the exam/ABD phase, you may want to try at least one. If your own university has none, look at adjuncting for nearby colleges, including community colleges. (I would wager that the majority of natural science/physical science students, and most social science students, have never sole taught a class before they get an assistant professor job. At least, it's not that common n my field, which straddles the social and natural sciences.)

-Always look for money. Money is awesome. If you can fund yourself you can do what you want, within reason. Your university will be thrilled, your adviser will be happy, and you can put it on your CV. It's win-win-win! Don't put yourself out of the running before anyone else has a chance to. Apply even if you think you won't get it or the odds are against you (they always are), as long as you are eligible. Apply often. Apply even if it's only $500. (That's conference travel!) Money begets money. The more awards you get, the more awards you will get. They will get bigger over time. If you are in the sciences and social sciences, you should get practice writing at least one grant. You don't have to write the whole thing, but at least get in on the process so that you can see how it's done. Grant-writing is very valuable both in and outside of graduate school.

-Revise your CV every so often. Then look and decide what you want to add to it. Then go get that thing, so you can add it.

-The career office at big universities is often not just for undergrads. I was surprised to learn that my career center offers help on CV organization and the academic job search, as well as alternative/non-academic career searches for doctoral students. In fact, there are two people whose sole purpose it is to help PhD students find nonacademic careers, and they both have PhDs. This will vary by university - some universities will have very little for grad students. Find out before you write the office off.

-It's never too early to go to seminars/workshops like "the academic job search inside and out", "creating the perfect CV," "getting the job," etc. NEVER. Often the leader will share tips that are more aimed towards early graduate students, or tidbits that are kind of too late for more advanced students to take care of. This will also help you keep a pulse on what's hot in your field. It'll help you know what lines you need to add to your CV. And they're interesting.

Other:

-Decide ahead of time what you are NOT willing to sacrifice on the altar of academia. Then stick to it.
I'm serious. If you decide that you do NOT want to sacrifice your relationship, don't. If it's your geographical mobility, don't. I mean, be realistic, and realize that there will always be trade-offs. But you have to think about what's important to you for your quality of life, and realize that there is always more to you than graduate school.

-If you don't want to be a professor, do not feel guilty about this. At all. Zero. However, you will have to do things differently than most doctoral students. Your adviser will probably never have worked outside of the academy (although this may vary depending on the field) so he may or may not be able to help you. But you have a special mission to seek out the kinds of experiences that will help you find a non-academic job. Test the waters with your adviser before you tell him this. My adviser was quite amenable to it, but that's because I told him that my goal was to still do research and policy work in my field just not at a university, AND because it's quite common in my field for doctoral students to do non-academic work. If you're in a field where it's not common (or where your professors refuse to believe it's common, or it's not supposed to be common)…well, you may be a little more on your own.

-Every so often, you will need to reflect on the reasons you came to graduate school. Sometimes, just sit and think quietly. Why are you doing this to yourself? Do you love your field? Do you need this degree to do what you want to do? Usually the answer is yes and yes, and usually you'll keep on trucking. But sometimes when the chips are down you will need to reevaluate why you put yourself through this in the first place.

-To my great dismay, depression is quite common in doctoral students. Graduate work can be isolating and stressful. Luckily your health insurance usually includes counseling sessions. TAKE THEM if you need them. Do not be ashamed. You may be surprised with who else is getting them. (I found out that everyone in my cohort, including me, was getting mental health counseling at a certain point.) Exercise can help, as can taking that mental health day once a week and just chilling. Don't be surprised if you get the blues…

-…but be self-aware and able to recognize when the depression is clouding your ability to function. Doctoral programs have a 50% attrition rate, and this is rarely because that 50% is less intelligent than, less motivated than, less driven than, or less ambitious than the other 50% that stays. Often they realize that they are ridiculously unhappy in the field, or that they don't need the degree anymore, or that they'd rather focus on other things in life, or their interests have changed. All of this is okay!

-You will, at some point, be like "eff this, I'm leaving." I think almost every doctoral student has thought about dropping out and just kicking this all to the curb. You need to listen to yourself, and find out whether it is idle thought (nothing to worry about, very normal) or whether you are truly unhappy to the point that you need to leave. Counseling can help you figure this out.

-Don't be afraid to take a semester or a year off if you need to. That's what leaves of absence are for.

Lastly, and positively…

…graduate school is great! Seriously, when else will you ever have the time to study what you want for hours on end, talk to just as interested others about it, and live in an intellectual community of scholars and intellectuals? And occasionally wake up at 11 am and go to the bank at 2 pm? Sometimes you will want to pull out all of your hair but most of the time, you will feel fulfilled and wonderfully encouraged and edified. So enjoy this time!

lol what? Someone should fire that bitch.
 
Post-docs have no reason to be bitches. They have fewer responsibilities than faculty and grad students. All they have to do is research projects. Every post doc I've worked with has been cool. If one starts to bitch, they can just suck a dick and leave.

My department (a psychology department that offers specializations in social and cognitive psychology and neuroscience; most of our students would define themselves as cognitive psychologists in some way) keeps pretty detailed employment/position data on our graduates dating back to 1985.  Although most of our alumni do take academic positions at various institutions, there is a good and large proportion (I would say at least 30-40%) that take non-academic positions.
 
Perusing the list shows that most of those who didn't become professors did stay in research in some form.  Many of them went on to do research for universities (often in the Office of Institutional Research, sometimes in other institutes and centers), hospitals, medical schools/medical centers/schools of public health, non-governmental organizations, non-profits, for-profit corporations, government agencies (city, state, and federal), and think tanks/policy research institutes.  Some of the potential companies include places like D.E. Shaw & Co., the City of New York, Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the WHO, Pacific Business Group on Health, RAND, Mathematica, RTI International, etc.  I also know that the Army and Navy hires research psychologists; I met quite a lot of them at APA one year and they were very nice and most really liked their jobs.  Cognitive psychology is one of their more in-demand fields.  There are literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of organizations in these categories that hire PhD-level researchers to run all kinds of studies for them.  When I looked, I was really very surprised to see how many there were out there for psychologists.
 
The second largest group were consultants of all kinds.  Some of them went on to be research consultants (consultants who help individuals and organizations plan and execute research studies), either at established firms or by setting up their own freelance consulting companies.  Some went on to be educational consultants, if their research overlapped, which yours does.  Some with strong stats skills went to be statistical consultants.  And some went on to regular management consulting at firms like McKinsey and BCG.  I go to one of those universities where the top consulting firms come to recruit, and they are always looking for bright young recent PhDs to staff their firms (I was invited to interview with one of them myself), especially if you have quantitative and computational skills.  They even have special seminars especially for what they call "Advanced Degree Candidates," which are potential consultants with graduate degrees that aren't an MBA.
 
A third group that kind of overlaps with the first one is the group who took non-academic positions at universities.  One of our most recent graduates is a data librarian at a liberal arts college; another one works in the office of institutional research at a nearby college.  Sometimes recent PhDs can get jobs as advising deans/advisers, in student affairs, in academic affairs, or other affiliated educational offices at colleges and universities.
  Then there were the ones that didn't fit into any groups.  A small number went to do client services management/project management at corporations; another small number worked in science & technology firms as a behavioral researcher or in another role.  (At APA one year, I met an engineering psychologist who worked at a large game publishing company and helped them put together their games; he said that he worked on a team with social, cognitive, and experimental psychologists who did gameplay and marketing researcher as they developed their games.)  One became director of marketing research at a pharmaceutical company, although that was an older graduate and I doubt that was their first job.  Some got into investment management.  One listed themselves as a freelance editor, and there are at least two successful published authors in the group - one who was actually in my cohort and her book became a NYT bestseller.  Two became psychology teachers at private high schools.  
Basically, there are lots and lots of jobs that you can do with a PhD in cognitive psychology.  Some of them are essentially doing what academics do - just the research part, in a different setting.  Some of them will have you using your PhD and research skills, and require a PhD, but are still kind of different from straight research.  And others don't require a PhD at all, but you'll still use some of the skills you learned.  What I mean to say is if you really want to get a PhD and you don't mind the very real chance that you won't get a tenure-track job afterwards, you probably won't be unemployed either if you can get creative.
 
Pick up a copy of So What Are You Going to Do With That? Finding Careers Outside Academia. It's a great book and filled with tips for intrepid graduate students who either have an inkling that academia is not for them or just want to be prepared for the possibility that they don't find an academic job.  Also, here is some of my own advice (from a grad student who is not sure whether she wants an academic career, and knew that from Day One):
 
-Whatever you choose to do and wherever you choose to go, develop and cultivate strong quantitative skills.  If your university offers it, get a joint/concurrent MA in statistics (many many universities allow this, including Michigan, Penn State and Yale) or a graduate certificate in statistics.  Even if there's no formal recognition, take statistics classes, as many as you can.  It's also a good idea to learn some computer programming, if you can.  My ability to generate outside income has relied heavily upon my strong quantitative skills, and when I look at non-academic job ads the thing that most of them have in common is that they usually desire someone who knows how to use this or that statistical package or who can do at least intermediate level statistical analyses.  Even if you stay in academia, most job ads nowadays ask for someone with strong methodological and statistical skills and want someone that can teach stats and methods, so you're preparing yourself either way.
 
-Always do something outside of the department.  Even if you don't need the extra money.  How may be a little tricky, if you get an adviser whose head is still in the sand wrt the job market or who thinks you should be in the lab 100 hours a week, but as much as you can, finagle it.  Ever since I finished coursework I've been working a "side hustle" with the primary purpose of developing some skills outside of the general academic ones.  I've done freelance statistical consulting, I worked as an intern at a market research company, I was a hall director in the office of student affairs, and now I'm doing statistical project advising/tutoring work in the library.  Each job has given me a variety of skills that I can draw upon, and I think compared with students who have done nothing beside being a research assistant I have an attractive bevy of experiences.  Plus I've shown that I can work in teams and in more traditional office environments (e.g. the 9-to-5 life, meetings, teleworking, etc.)
 
-Go to career center events.  I go to a lot of them.  My university's career center is rather excellent and has a whole series of events directly targeted at doctoral students who want non-academic jobs (as well as events for doctoral students who want academic jobs, both R1s and at LACs and other types of institutions.  In fact, I'm going to one tomorrow.)  They bring people to campus to talk about alternative careers; they have "turn your CV into a resume" workshops; they bring corporations who want to hire PhDs to campus to pitch their companies, etc.  But even if whatever university you end up at doesn't have a strong career center for grad students, go to the undergrad events without shame.
 
-Personally I always keep both an updated CV and resume on deck.  You never know when you're going to need either.
 
Final note: age-wise, as far as my department is concerned, you would be middle-of-the-pack.  At 22, I was one of the youngest in my cohort when I began.  Most of our beginning students are in their mid 20s to early 30s, and many either were married or got married and had some children during the program.  Actually, I was astonished and very pleasantly surprised by how absolutely normal everyone in my cohort is - we're just normal people living normal regular lives who happen to be huge dorks about psychology.  And everyone is considering non-academic careers, even though we don't say it in front of our advisers.  So you may not stand out as much as you think you will.

Thought I'd make this for those applying to neuroscience programs this application cycle. I'm only applying to cognitive neuroscience programs but I didn't want to exclude other neuro people

my girlfriend of 4 years and I will both be attending doctorate programs this fall...but 700 miles apart.

sadly, we decided it would be best to end it since neither of us wants a relationship where we maybe see each other once a year. plus, it gives us a chance to grow individually instead of relying on each other like we did in undergrad.

those are the positives, but it still really sucks.

my girlfriend of 4 years and I will both be attending doctorate programs this fall...but 700 miles apart.

sadly, we decided it would be best to end it since neither of us wants a relationship where we maybe see each other once a year. plus, it gives us a chance to grow individually instead of relying on each other like we did in undergrad.

those are the positives, but it still really sucks.

my girlfriend of 4 years and I will both be attending doctorate programs this fall...but 700 miles apart.

sadly, we decided it would be best to end it since neither of us wants a relationship where we maybe see each other once a year. plus, it gives us a chance to grow individually instead of relying on each other like we did in undergrad.

those are the positives, but it still really sucks.

my girlfriend of 4 years and I will both be attending doctorate programs this fall...but 700 miles apart.

sadly, we decided it would be best to end it since neither of us wants a relationship where we maybe see each other once a year. plus, it gives us a chance to grow individually instead of relying on each other like we did in undergrad.

those are the positives, but it still really sucks.

I hope your goals are a bit more focused than that.... Just getting a random psychology PhD from an Ivy League School is not very clear or practical.

Do you know what area of psychology you want to go into?

Also, a 3.22 GPA will be low for Ivy League Schools but you do have a very good GRE score.

my girlfriend of 4 years and I will both be attending doctorate programs this fall...but 700 miles apart.

sadly, we decided it would be best to end it since neither of us wants a relationship where we maybe see each other once a year. plus, it gives us a chance to grow individually instead of relying on each other like we did in undergrad.

those are the positives, but it still really sucks.

lol why did i get a plus 3 for this post?

my girlfriend of 4 years and I will both be attending doctorate programs this fall...but 700 miles apart.

sadly, we decided it would be best to end it since neither of us wants a relationship where we maybe see each other once a year. plus, it gives us a chance to grow individually instead of relying on each other like we did in undergrad.

those are the positives, but it still really sucks.

I think it is okay to email master's program profs as well. You would still be working in their lab right?

I think emails should be pretty brief to potential professors.

Something like:

Dr. X, hi my name is blank and i'm interested in school Y's psychology program. I am interested in your blank research and was wondering if you were taking any students next fall.

thank you,

neuropsych76


Most of the time they'll give you a brief yes or no reply. but sometimes they'll ask for a cv or even want to talk on the phone.

note: how the respond seems to have very little predictive value on if they will accept you though.

my girlfriend of 4 years and I will both be attending doctorate programs this fall...but 700 miles apart.

sadly, we decided it would be best to end it since neither of us wants a relationship where we maybe see each other once a year. plus, it gives us a chance to grow individually instead of relying on each other like we did in undergrad.

those are the positives, but it still really sucks.

lol why did i get a plus 3 for this post?

I had a POI say something similar and I didn't have that many questions for them either. I did go ahead and ask a few questions that I normally would have "saved" for the interview...things like how their lab is structured, specifics about the program structure, milestones in the program. I got great feed back from them and it has made me feel more confident about the upcoming interview. I think now at the interview rather than asking basic questions we can focus on research. I think just keeping the lines of communication open is what is most important. If you have no questions at all for them you could consider asking them about the upcoming interview (how will it be structured, who will you meet, is a campus tour involved). Ask the current students about research of course, but also asking them about student like, housing, and their reasons for selecting that program can be great starts too.

Hope this helps, and Im sure other people will have tips too!

This goes for advance users.
As soon as you know most of google operators, combining them can get you down to the information you look for.
I'll give on example:
Let's say you are looking to find information on 'what is serotonin'. So you if you want to find information that will contain those exact keywords, you will put them in quotes. This way google will return results containing all your words (keywords) in this exact order.
Now let's go further. Let's say you are interested in only websites with .org extension that contain the information you are looking for. So you go ahead and type: "what is serotonin" inurl:.org
So you have your keywords in quotes and you added the operator "inurl:", which will return results that contain ".org" in their url address.

Hope this is easy to understand and it will help you Decaf.