u/Baked_Flour

Hello everyone! I currently just wrapped up my sophomore year as an undergraduate. My main aspiration is to get into a fully-funded PhD program for clinical psychology (preferably neuropsychology or just a clinical psych program that emphasizes neuroscience).

I’ve heard how it’s one of the most competitive programs to get into, and that it has only gotten significantly harder because of massive cuts to funding.

So, here is my in-progress “CV” as well as my plans for junior and senior year. Please let me know what you think and if I’m a strong candidate.

Undergrad Degree
-Major: Cognitive Neuroscience
-Minor: Philosophy
-GPA: 3.87
-Many extra science classes I also took—and will continue taking—that I got A’s in (physics, chem, etc).

Research Experience
-So, currently none. However, I did get into a slightly competitive research program at my university where I’ll be doing an independent study with a mentor for my entire junior year.
-so after junior year, 1 year of independent research in a cognitive neuroscience lab.
-ideally, I’ll have don’t another year of research in my senior year, totaling 2 years of research experience.
-additionally, I plan on doing a summer research program for neuroscience during my summer Inbetween junior and senior year. Those look fun and at a good university, it can be a nice boon to my cv.

Work/Clinical Experience
-Home Health Aide (Attendant) for two full years now. Taking care of a senior in her own home. Mostly night shifts.
-I worked at a program designed to aid neurodivergent students in their academic success. Only for about 3 months in 2025, turned out to be too much work at once mixing my other job and school.

That’s basically it so far. Other than the extra year of research I plan to do my senior year as well as the summer research program, what do you guys think? Am I a good candidate? Any advice?

Hello everyone! I currently just wrapped up my sophomore year as an undergraduate. My main aspiration is to get into a fully-funded PhD program for clinical psychology (preferably neuropsychology or just a clinical psych program that emphasizes neuroscience).

I’ve heard how it’s one of the most competitive programs to get into, and that it has only gotten significantly harder because of massive cuts to funding.

So, here is my in-progress “CV” as well as my plans for junior and senior year. Please let me know what you think and if I’m a strong candidate.

Undergrad Degree
-Major: Cognitive Neuroscience
-Minor: Philosophy
-GPA: 3.87
-Many extra science classes I also took—and will continue taking—that I got A’s in (physics, chem, etc).

Research Experience
-So, currently none. However, I did get into a slightly competitive research program at my university where I’ll be doing an independent study with a mentor for my entire junior year.
-so after junior year, 1 year of independent research in a cognitive neuroscience lab.
-ideally, I’ll have don’t another year of research in my senior year, totaling 2 years of research experience.
-additionally, I plan on doing a summer research program for neuroscience during my summer Inbetween junior and senior year. Those look fun and at a good university, it can be a nice boon to my cv.

Work/Clinical Experience
-Home Health Aide (Attendant) for two full years now. Taking care of a senior in her own home. Mostly night shifts.
-I worked at a program designed to aid neurodivergent students in their academic success. Only for about 3 months in 2025, turned out to be too much work at once mixing my other job and school.

That’s basically it so far. Other than the extra year of research I plan to do my senior year as well as the summer research program, what do you guys think? Am I a good candidate? Any advice?

So I’m entering my junior year as an undergraduate. I major cognitive neuroscience and I love what I learn. I have a very high gpa and I take a lot of additional classes like physics out of sheer love of learning as well as better understanding neuro.

Starting the fall semester, I’m beginning my first actual study/research project under a program with my mentor (a professor in the field). Today we discussed plans for what my research will be on and my mentor introduced me to a few projects her lab is already working on. I pick up on material very well, I’m a good student. But this stuff was dense. I am an undergrad after all but looking down the barrel of actual research and its complexity (especially compared to some of the classic papers I’ve read in my classes), it terrified me.

I expressed my interests in memory consolidation, salience networks, and reward learning. Eventually we will have to come to a conclusive idea on what I’ll be working on. Data collection as well as developing an abstract will be done in the fall. For the spring, I will be finalizing analyses and the overall paper so I can present it at conferences. It’s a lot to try accomplishing in only 1 academic year.

I guess my anxiety is coming from the fact that I’ll be playing in the big leagues while still feeling like I don’t know much. It’s certainly a leap of faith. I wanted to know how everyone else’s first research experience went and how it made them feel or how it paid off.

So I’m entering my junior year as an undergraduate. I major cognitive neuroscience and I love what I learn. I have a very high gpa and I take a lot of additional classes like physics out of sheer love of learning as well as better understanding neuro. I’m listing this here instead of r/college because I want opinions from people in academia with a lot of experience. I really look up to you guys.

Starting the fall semester, I’m beginning my first actual study/research project under a program with my mentor (a professor in the field). Today we discussed plans for what my research will be on and my mentor introduced me to a few projects her lab is already working on. I pick up on material very well, I’m a good student. But this stuff was dense. I am an undergrad after all but looking down the barrel of actual research and its complexity (especially compared to some of the classic papers I’ve read in my classes), it terrified me.

I expressed my interests in memory consolidation, salience networks, and reward learning. Eventually we will have to come to a conclusive idea on what I’ll be working on. Data collection as well as developing an abstract will be done in the fall. For the spring, I will be finalizing analyses and the overall paper so I can present it at conferences. It’s a lot to try accomplishing in only 1 academic year.

I guess my anxiety is coming from the fact that I’ll be playing in the big leagues while still feeling like I don’t know much. It’s certainly a leap of faith. I wanted to know how everyone else’s first research experience went and how it made them feel or how it paid off.