have doubts about my area of research- normal?

[memyselfandcoffee]

HI I am in a social psyhcology programme and now have doubts and wonder if I should have chosen a cogntive or perceptual programme

i am interested in social-emotional processing, but in refining a research idea we seem to moving a little bit away from that

I am also interested in perception and attention and worry that I have made the wrong decision.

But I feel that I'm in this programme, Id be lucky to get into another, it would probably be a year or two before I could start, if I even found what I was looking for, I may not like my supervisor ( and my current supervisor is great). also I am 35 so i dont really have the time ( or the money to mess about) and also even if i did get inot another programme, i could end up being nudged in a direction i didnt love anyway.

I feel I should make the most of where I am now, and then would it be possible to a post doc in cognitive or perceptual psych?

so thoughts and advise,

( ps the plus side to where I am, is that supervisor is very smart and very nice, and I really like researching and am settling inot the new department)

thanks

Elise

[rising_star]

Relax! You haven't made the wrong decision just because the research you're doing right now (in your first year, right?) isn't what you want to do for your career. Give it a chance, first of all. Second, realize that your research focus will shift over time in grad school.

Yes, you can do a postdoc in a related area if you want to. Your current research won't hinder that provided you're able to clearly articulate the research you will do as a postdoc.

[Bluth.]

Nice to find someone with the same research interests as myself (attention/emotion/social cognition). Are you currently studying in the UK?

[juilletmercredi]

I think your research interests will always evolve. My research interests now, and my intentions for my postdoc, are very different than they were when I first entered. They're definitely within the same field and even the same subfield, but the population and some of the predictors have changed. I think when your research straddles two subfields, it's very easy to think that you went into the "wrong" subfield.

The problem is your view is very narrow now, while still in the graduate program. I know a developmental psychologist who is now a quantitative psychologist, some social psychologists who have become cognitive psychologists and even a developmental psychologist who teaches in a biology department. It's very likely that you'll finish your program in social psych and go do a postdoc in more cognition/perception stuff, and become a social cognitive researcher.

I think that if you find your program really inadequate to give you the tools to learn to do what you want to do in the future, then you can consider leaving. But if your research is just moving a little away from your interests and you have side interests that you can't pursue yet, you should probably stick it out. Everyone does something a little different than what they want to do in grad school, because you're working for a professor and not independently yet. I've heard that your interests converge more with what you're doing in a postdoc, and even more when you are actually working as a PI.

[memyselfandcoffee]

thanks jullietmercredi, you have allayed alot of my fears. I'm pretty happy with programme, as i get to choose my own content electives and i get on well with my supervisor & fellow phders. So tbh I would probably be a fool to throw away this opportunity. also I actually do find what Im doing interesting, but I just don't want to be stuck in social/clinical area for ever. I just wasn't what sure what was normal and if I would have a hope of getting a postdoc in a perceptual/cognitive area.

Hi Bluth, yes I am in Uk, I don't want to say where for anonymity reasons.

Edited November 4, 2012 by elise123