Gap year student: RA position cancelled due to COVID . Opinions needed!19

[SheMadeItEventually]

Hi All! I hope all of you are staying inside your homes safe and sound. I wanted to get your two cents on how I could use this time to help building my CV for graduate school application.

I graduated last year and have been taking a gap year (well, two actually) before applying to phd programs. Up until this January, I have been focusing on studying GRE and rebuilding my health. I did make some extra money working a part time job. So in January, I got a research assistant position at a university (FYI, I'm not in the U.S so the December-the end of Feb is winter break here). I was really looking forward to start this job because I really really enjoyed the topic and thought it was a great chance to boost my CV. But my the time the school term started in early March, the entire country ordered shutdown of all school for two weeks. Two weeks became four weeks.... then the schools, including the one I was going to start at, decided to move the class to online for the rest of the semester. Naturally, the labs are shut down and my RA position is indefinitely postponed. 

So now I'm sitting on my couch, thinking what could I do to make myself a better candidate? (FYI 2: I'm 70% sure I will be applying this december).What do you guys think?

Should I look for clinical jobs as getting research jobs are pretty much impossible right now (My field requires human contact)? Not to rub it in anyone's face but the situation in this country is getting a lot better each day. However, the schools are trying to prevent second peak of the infection by cancelling all activities. I commend  them for their actions but this is quite frustrating. 

I've been thinking some ways to use this time of uncertainty. I came up with these so far...

1. Learn some more statistics program in detail (ex: spss, r). I know these two in basic sense. But it's been a year since I haven't touched these and I can see myself spending some time learning these tools in detail. Would having these skills help for grad school?

2. Work at clinical setting. This will be your typical 9-5 job with decent pay. The only drawback is this has always been a second option for me because my field puts much of its emphasis on research rather than having clinical experience. 

3. I don't know, be a couch potato as I have been these few weeks waiting from the professor I was going to work with.

Oh, just a fleeting thought, working on personal statement might be a good idea too.

 

Stay home and stay safe guys!

 

[SheMadeItEventually]

Hi, please feel free to ignore this post as I accidentally posted on the wrong forum. But if you have any thoughts, I would be happy to hear from you!

[plaguerat]

It may be a good idea to reach out to the professor you were going to work with to see if there's any work you can do virtually. I work as a research assistant under two different professors, and while the universities have closed down, there obviously wasn't any in-person work we could do. I emailed both to see if there was any work that could be done at home, and have been completing some tasks here and there that can be done virtually. Of course, your professor may not have anything for you to do online, but it's always a possibility.

Getting some clinical experience is always a good idea, and so if you have the option to get a job in a clinical setting (and you're comfortable doing the work during the pandemic) I'd say go for it! Some experience is better than no experience in my mind, and I'm sure admissions and future PIs will be more understanding of the fact that you weren't able to gain research experience due to the pandemic. It was out of your control. Work on strengthening the rest of your application as well!

Good luck!!

[psychpsychpsych]

I think getting more acquainted with different stat programs is a really good idea!! There are also several stat workshops that have moved online, so you could try and join those! You can put these newly acquired skills on your CV when preparing for PhD applications and they may ask you about your stats abilities during an interview, and you can talk about taking your own initiative to study it! As the above post suggested, I also recommend reaching out to PIs (or the PI you were going to work with) and see if there is anything you can help with! I did this about a year ago and the PI happened to ask me if I'd like to write a paper with her, so you never know unless you just put feelers out there! It is really rough now for research, because nothing is moving with COVID. But I think you still have options, good luck!

[Modulus]

Learning R and/or Python is a great use of your time. You will be miles ahead of your cohort (and many of the faculty). It can't hurt that it also makes you marketable as a data analytics professional outside of academia as well.

[EileanDonan]

20 minutes ago, Modulus said:

Learning R and/or Python is a great use of your time. You will be miles ahead of your cohort (and many of the faculty). It can't hurt that it also makes you marketable as a data analytics professional outside of academia as well.

I can echo this, I see programming ability being mentioned on a fair number of RA/coordinator openings, especially of the neuro or cognitive variety. I've been using some of my extra lockdown time to work on Python via various online resources. Does anyone here have any concrete suggestions as to what specific programming skills are considered desirable within a lab? Not trying to hijack the thread, but I think this sort of advice would benefit everyone in this situation.

[Modulus]

1 hour ago, EileanDonan said:

I can echo this, I see programming ability being mentioned on a fair number of RA/coordinator openings, especially of the neuro or cognitive variety. I've been using some of my extra lockdown time to work on Python via various online resources. Does anyone here have any concrete suggestions as to what specific programming skills are considered desirable within a lab? Not trying to hijack the thread, but I think this sort of advice would benefit everyone in this situation.

In my experience, many labs are very disorganized when it comes to formal data management. Skills regarding managing and cleaning data are essential and will take you very far on their own. I'm an R person (who should be using my time to learn Python too), so in R terms, learn the tidyverse and the principles for data organization. You will thank yourself later. (And so will your mentors and lab mates).

Data visualization is probably the next skill.

On the more programming-heavy side, experience working with big data (including interfacing with data on a SQL or noSQL server) or machine learning approaches are particularly attractive draws.

[EileanDonan]

1 minute ago, Modulus said:

In my experience, many labs are very disorganized when it comes to formal data management. Skills regarding managing and cleaning data are essential and will take you very far on their own. I'm an R person (who should be using my time to learn Python too), so in R terms, learn the tidyverse and the principles for data organization. You will thank yourself later. (And so will your mentors and lab mates).

Data visualization is probably the next skill.

On the more programming-heavy side, experience working with big data (including interfacing with data on a SQL or noSQL server) or machine learning approaches are particularly attractive draws.

That's great, thank you! If you don't mind one last question: I have no concrete programming projects from undergrad or time in the lab, so I was thinking of putting together some data analysis project (cleaning data sets, basic statistical analysis) on Github and linking it to my resume. Would this be a sufficient alternative demonstration of ability for PIs? I'm assuming MOOC course certificates don't mean much realistically.

[Modulus]

33 minutes ago, EileanDonan said:

That's great, thank you! If you don't mind one last question: I have no concrete programming projects from undergrad or time in the lab, so I was thinking of putting together some data analysis project (cleaning data sets, basic statistical analysis) on Github and linking it to my resume. Would this be a sufficient alternative demonstration of ability for PIs? I'm assuming MOOC course certificates don't mean much realistically.

I think it's going to depend on the PI. I had an undergrad transcript with a number of computer sciences courses on it and prior IT employment, so I think that worked for me. I actually learned R on the job. I think my potential and existing skill set was a bonus, but probably would not have gotten me a programming-focused position. 

I think a basic project up on github would be great. (Consider adding data visualization as well). And put those MOOC on your CV somewhere. If you can talk in detail about what you learned and demonstrate it, why not? Someone really looking for a data analyst (instead of a general RA with data analysis skills) is probably going to search for a traditional programmer/CS graduate and/or go the technical interview route. I'd bill yourself as 'tech-saavy' and' Python fluent', but still, with your ultimate goal, gear your applications toward getting general research experience. 

 

[EileanDonan]

15 minutes ago, Modulus said:

I think it's going to depend on the PI. I had an undergrad transcript with a number of computer sciences courses on it and prior IT employment, so I think that worked for me. I actually learned R on the job. I think my potential and existing skill set was a bonus, but probably would not have gotten me a programming-focused position. 

I think a basic project up on github would be great. (Consider adding data visualization as well). And put those MOOC on your CV somewhere. If you can talk in detail about what you learned and demonstrate it, why not? Someone really looking for a data analyst (instead of a general RA with data analysis skills) is probably going to search for a traditional programmer/CS graduate and/or go the technical interview route. I'd bill yourself as 'tech-saavy' and' Python fluent', but still, with your ultimate goal, gear your applications toward getting general research experience. 

 

Thanks so much! I appreciate having a more directly relevant perspective. Cheers on the UGeorgia admit by the way, I've been looking at that program myself. Good luck on your program!

[Modulus]

2 hours ago, EileanDonan said:

Thanks so much! I appreciate having a more directly relevant perspective. Cheers on the UGeorgia admit by the way, I've been looking at that program myself. Good luck on your program!

No problem and thanks! Feel free to PM me with any questions about the application process in general or UGA in particular.