What courses should I take?

Remember that the heart of your education will come from doing research--not taking courses. Still, coursework can  help you develop as a researcher, and prepare you to teach various courses in various areas of psychology. Suggested courses include: Cognitive Psychology, Perception, Psychobiology or Basic Neuroscience & Cognition, Developmental Psychology (especially one that emphasizes aging), and Theories of Social Psychology. Of course, you should also take advantage of specialized seminars.

Here is a suggested course curriculum (subject to course availability).

How do I come up with a thesis topic?

In order to maximize the chances that your project will produce useful findings, it's best to explore the limits of an established phenomenon. (Following-up on very new, untested findings can be interesting, but risky). You may find, however, that the many well-established phenomena have already been exhaustively studied. For the thesis, the trick is to find something that sufficiently well-established so that it's reasonably safe and likely to yield interesting results, but not so well-established that it's already been studied to death.

Ideally, your thesis will strike a balance between demonstrating your own scientific creativity and following a path that your adviser has already cleared.

If your thesis follows-up on work that your adviser has done, he/she will be in the best position to help you do a good job and to help you find a receptive outlet for publication. On the other hand, if your topic is too similar with that of your adviser, you may have a hard time making your thesis 'measure up' to your advisor's work. In addition, when it's time for you to look for a job, you'll want to be able to demonstrate that you've done truly creative work and not just copied your adviser.

What will happen during my thesis proposal and defense?

Proposal: Your major goal will be to convince the committee that you know the literature well enough, that your rational and methodology are strong enough, and that your writing is clear enough so that your project has a good chance of succeeding--ideally, resulting in publication. Consequently, you'll need to make a strong written case for your project, and you'll need to orally defend your project in a way that displays your mastery of the literature.

• Tips on paper-writing, data analysis, describing interactions: See this page.

• Tips on proper graph formatting.

Defense: Your major goal is to convince the committee that you are a scholar whose knowledge and ability merits the title, "Master of Arts." Thus, you'll need to show mastery of the entire project (not just the results and discussion), as well as display your ability to provide clear, logical, oral responses to questions that relate either directly or indirectly to the thesis project. You want to leave the committee with a good impression that, later on, may become the basis for good letters of recommendation, invitations to assist in research projects, etc.

What do I have to do to be a co-author on a paper?

A co-author should play a substantial role in coming up with the idea for the research project, or should make substantial contributions to designing the study, collecting the data and analyzing/interpreting the results. Subject-running and straightforward data analysis alone, will not ordinarily earn a student co-authorship, but will merit recognition in the acknowledgments section of a paper.

How do I come of with a topic for a prelim project or for a dissertation?

Whereas your adviser may have given you very specific direction with regard to a master's thesis topic, you are expected to exercise great independence in choosing a prelim or a dissertation topic. Still, it is a good idea to choose a topic that is sufficiently related to your advisor's expertise so that you can actually get some help from your adviser.

What else should I be doing while I'm here?

You should be going to conferences and presenting research. This will help you develop good research ideas. It will also expose you and your work to future manuscript-reviewers and hiring committees.

You should be taking some initiative in starting research projects: If you wait for your adviser to do it, or if you limit yourself to just the thesis, prelim, and dissertation, you may find it hard to generate sufficient numbers of publications.

It's sometimes a good idea to work on more than one project, with more than one faculty member--especially during your 1st two semesters. This will help expose you to a wide range of possibilities for future research. But you should not spread your efforts so thinly that your progress is slowed.

There are fellowship grants you can apply for, including those offered by the National Science Foundation

Conferences:

How do I know if I'm doing a good job on my research assistantship?

Your assistantship sponsor will assign you specific duties. However, in most cases you will be expected to take initiative in expanding upon your sponsor's research project, or even starting a new research project. If you've gone a week without spending at least a few hours on your research assistantship then you're not doing enough--regardless of whether your sponsor has given you a specific task to complete. If you're averaging less than 15 to 20 hours per week, you need to do more.

Do have to hang around much, in the Psych Building?

Yes. As a research assistant or teaching assistant, you're most useful if you're easily accessible on short notice--which, for you, means spending a couple of hours daily in the Psych Building (above and beyond the time spent in class).

The importance of clear, unambiguous writing.

Good, unambiguous, well-organized writing is essential to making swift progress through the program. Unfortunately, writing skills take lots of time to develop, and if yours are lacking you'll have an up-hill battle. I've found that my own writing skills have improved tremendously as a result of reading and critiquing other people's writing.

What if I don't have many research ideas?

To be a successful academic researcher, you will need to have a strong and steady flow of research ideas. This is less true for industry researchers and for non-researching teachers.  At some point, you will have to decide which career path is right for you.

How long will all of this take, and
what will I do after receiving my PhD?

Shrinking budgets have made it difficult for departments to extend Masters/Dissertation-level funding beyond four years. So do your best to be done by the end of your 4th year. However, it has become commonplace for job applicants to have had a couple of years of post-doctoral experience (with a corresponding record of additional publications). 

If you want an academic job that involves both teaching and research, you might be able to get a job straight out of grad school. But more likely, you'll end up spending two or more years as a postdoctoral student.

If you want a teaching-only job, then perhaps four years will do it--as long as you've had successful and varied experience in teaching your own courses (not just TA-ing).

Four years may also do it for a job in industry, but you will need to have gotten lots of statistics training (probably more than what our program requires) and/or chosen research projects with clear potential for practical application in a thriving industry. Also note that the requirements, for the three career paths, are not 100% compatible. For example, doing applied research can make it difficult to get an academic job, and getting sufficient experience for a "teaching only" job can leave you with insufficient publications.

Finally, the job market has been tight, and there's no guarantee that you'll be able to follow your first-choice career path. Thus, it's important to keep your options reasonably open, if you can.

I'm thinking about buying my own computer. What kind should I buy?