Shinja

Thank you for the encouragement. Best of luck at your PhD program!!

Thank you so much for the advice and reading suggestions.

Hello everyone,I live in the United states and received a Biology degree at a top 50 undergrad institution. I graduated with a GPA of high 3.4-3.5: Not enough to disqualify me I think, but not enough to make me stand out. I did take two courses in Cognitive Science and received As in both of them. I got As in my writing and essay related courses as well.Now I have around three years of work experience as a business analyst in healthcare (mostly reporting and project management, and I plan to get involved in work that will help me learn/apply statistical programming), but I've realized that getting a PhD in Clinical Psychology is what I've wanted all along. Without getting a graduate degree it will be nearly impossible for me to make a case that I can withstand the academic rigor, but now I need to figure out how to get into a graduate program. At this point I think the best way to improve my chances of getting into a top grad school is to get a job as a research assistant in a Psychology lab. I am leaning towards this option instead of going for a post-bacc since it is more likely to provide a valuable letter of recommendation and save me money, but I don't have any definitive proof (and I would love to do it, regardless). Now the question is, what's the best way to apply for a research assistant position and convince them I can do the job? I have experience from my undergrad working at a lab- and I know I can get a solid recommendation from my current place of employment regarding my work ethic and initiative- but how do I show that I know the material? I want to start applying by the end of the summer to winter and build a solid resume by then. As of now, I'm floundering in a couple of options: Do I get Statistics/Data Science/Psychology & Neuroscience certificates from Coursera/edx? Is that enough? If not, should I take online courses from top universities for pass/fail course credit (Oxford Online), or should I take courses for grades (UC Berkeley)? The second option will get expensive quickly. Could I do a combination of both? For example, Data science certificates from Coursera, a credit course from Oxford, and a graded course from UC Berkeley? My ultimate goal is to use my PhD in Clinical Psychology/Neuroscience and contribute to the field of Political Psychology/Conflict Resolution. I feel like I'm reaching for the stars, but we start with small steps, right? What do you think? Thanks!