cogscipixie

Hi displayname, You should check out Versatile PHD's website and the Humanities and Social Sciences forum. There are lots of grad students like yourself on the site that are seeking nonacademic (research or not) careers. I highly recommend it for tips and any other advice for transitioning out of the Ivory Tower. http://versatilephd.com/

Didn't get it this year. Perhaps I will do one more try.

In case anyone is still trying to find lab manager positions, Greg Hickok & David Poeppel (cognitive neuroscientists) post lab manager position openings for all over the country on their neuro blog. Most of them are cognitive psych/cognitive science oriented. Here is the site: http://www.talkingbrains.org/

Check the job pages on research society web pages or even on facebook! I know that Association for Psychological Science (APS), Psychonomic Society (Cognitive), and Cognitive Neuroscience Society posted stuff for lab managers or research associate positions. Perhaps SRSP will post positions in a similar manner? Also, some labs will even post it on their website, if they are really good about updating their sites.

So happy to click that submit button Don't want to think about it for a couple of months, for sure!

I'm so close to finishing my research proposal final draft! Once that's done, the submit button will be clicked (albeit nervously).

NSFers- How do you go about getting your official transcript into an electronic form? Can you simply ask if from your undergraduate institution, have them send it to you, then have it scanned? I know for a fact my undergraduate college will only have it sent via mail and not electronically or by fax. How do I go about this?

Oh, I totally understand what everyone has said above. I'm feeling like I'm constantly being "one-upped" by the other 1st year grad student in my lab who is always coming in on the weekend to do work, and making me feel like a lazy bum, even though I'm getting my work done. I think I need to do see psychological services because I feel like it is a constant competition with him to see who is doing more work than the other. It makes me sick to my stomach, quite frankly.

Indiana University has an excellent Learning Sciences program with a lot of researchers doing educational technology-related work. They have both Masters and PhD programs. Worth checking out, plus their department is top-notch.

Hi all, I've just started my doctoral work in cognitive psychology/cognitive science. Prior, I was working at a different R1 university in a interdisciplinary research center setting, and got to see what went on behind the scenes of a different cognitive psychology program. I knew that I wanted to get a PhD in cognitive science doing educationally applied research in memory and text processing. However, I'm already starting to feel like people in my own lab at my own university as well as on grad cafe think that I made a careless decision by thinking I could go down the "nontraditional" path by seeking out mentors from both inside and outside the academy that have used their cognitive science degree in industry research. It's frustrating to not be able to change the system that I'm in that wants their students to go R1 (which is close to impossible these days) or become a failure. I've seen lots of bright people go directly into great cognitive research positions in industry right after defending their dissertations. I just want to make sure I am open to a lot of career possibilities in case going into an R1 isn't right for me. Am I wrong for thinking this way? It's just frustrating to see such negative comments from others telling me "I didn't think this out clearly." I thought this out for over 4 years. I knew I wanted to get my PhD awhile ago, but it took me several years to really pin down my interests, which ended up being very applied.

I have to politely disagree, donnyz89. It depends on a variety of factors, and with the academy and economy being the way that they are now, departments and faculty need to be open to other career paths for their students. I love cognitive psychology, but think that not everyone is meant to go into an R1 environment. I think having the attitude that the only thing that an experimental psychology phd is good for is the Ivory Tower is what produces unhappy graduate students that feel that they need to follow in the steps of their advisors and compete for hypothetical tenure-track jobs that are nonexistent.

I don't know about advisors applying to 10 schools. Most of them especially prior to the 1990s didn't have the fierce competition for spots like we do now. My advisor, a brilliant guy, maybe only applied to 3 schools, and got into all 3 in the 1980s. Times have changed a lot for the grad school app process. Also, don't consider that your safety will necessarily be a "safety." I didn't get into any of my safeties, but rather got several other offers from schools that were a strong fit. So worry less about the admission stats for each school to control your picks, and rather look at advisor matches and department matches that look like the best research fit. Most profs won't mind you applying to more than 10. All my letter writers and psych profs I talked to encouraged applying more to 10, especially when you find out that programs only accept 4-6% of the applicants.

As far as I know in cognitive science/ cognitive psychology, there are a lot of research positions in industry (visualization, education-oriented research). For example, you have cognitive scientists being hired right out of graduate school by medium and large educational technology companies (Pearson, ETS, etc). I also know that there are a good amount of cognitive psychologists employed by Sandia Labs, government labs, private companies that are contracted by the government to do defense -related projects, and the list goes on and on. I think if more academics were open to encouraging students going in different career paths, there would be more people going non-academic. My advisors are pretty gung-ho about me going in an academic path that suits me, but not them. Not everyone is that lucky though. I think it also depends if you want to be a full-time research scientist or something more...corporate/cubicle-oriented. I want to be a research scientist wherever I go afterwards, but maybe not at an R1 institution.