Will I get credit (unit-wise) for research with advisor?

[PhDinPublicHealthHopeful]

I'm just curious on other people's experiences. Have you received any course credit (units) for research projects done with your advisor, particularly projects that they conduct and you assist in? Also, how have you been able to schedule research time in with your coursework? Do you pick certain days? I'm in public health, so our research is generally done with people not in labs if that helps.

[PhDinPublicHealthHopeful]

P.S. I'm a doctoral student.

[fuzzylogician]

Those are two completely unrelated questions. For the first one, that sounds either like a research assistantship that you'd get paid for, or just plain old research that you participate in because that's the main purpose of a PhD. I've taken research "credits" on occasion because as an international student I needed to take a certain number of units in order to meet my visa requirements. The research was my own, not my advisor's (whenever I helped with someone else's research as an assistant, I got paid). 

As for scheduling research, the answer to this question shifted with time. The first year of my PhD program was very course heavy, with not a lot of research required. We were only expected to start working on our first research project in the second semester of first year. With time that balance shifted significantly, and of course in later years there were no more courses and the bulk of our time was (supposed to be) dedicated to research. I honestly can't remember what I did in my first year anymore, I probably worked on my project a couple of times a week, at least the day before/the day of meeting my advisor (we had weekly meetings), the day after, and some other random day(s) of the week. Research is not a linear process and I always have more than one project going, so I find it hard to say I spent X time on X days working on this project or that. I think the more general answer really depends. I try to keep my most productive hours for research and schedule other activities around it. Obviously that's harder in the coursework phase because no one is going to reschedule a class because you would rather be writing. But overall it's good to do something research-related every day, although I think everyone will admit to unproductive days where nothing really happens, even though it really should.