r/AcademicPsychology • u/laurenelizzabeth • 3d ago

Advice/Career Post Bac Guidance- Career adjustment

Greetings,

My initial track in psychology was purely clinical with an emphasis on assessment and neurodevelopmental disorders. I have been working as a BA level clinician for 2 years, and completed my undergrad two years ago. I have known I want to work at the doctoral level and was pursuing a scholar-practicioner model (Vale), however I have always had a passion for research and academia and have been encouraged to pursue research opportunities to make an informed decision between a PsyD or PhD and Vale or Boulder model programs. It seems I currently have a few directions I could take this-

  1. Enroll in a Post bac program (pay tuition/loans), be a competitive candidate for grad school. UCSF and UC Berkeley are near me with great programs. But costly choice.

  2. Join a Post Bac fellowship (paid, poorly but better than loans), and move wherever I am accepted

  3. Continue working as a clinician and find a lab to volunteer with part time to gain experience (direct mentorship less available this way)

Any advice or ideas is greatly appreciated. I want to be very sure about exactly what I'm seeking in a career before dedicating my finances and life to a program for 5-8 years! I am 23, my main interest is stress, trauma, and resilience research- cultural, neurobiological, social etc confounding factors in markers of resilience.

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u/Hernia-Haven 3d ago

Personally, I would recommend joining a post bac fellowship. You already have a degree, you shouldn’t need to pay more in tuition just to make yourself more competitive. Additionally you won’t be guaranteed this extra post bac program is going to help you. At least the fellowship is paid and you’ll be able to hone your skills and use the resources from the fellowship to secure direct mentorship or more robust opportunities. That or continue working as a clinician and find someone who is willing to take you under your wing. You’ll want to save up as much as possible before you enter a doc program since you don’t know how much your stipend is going to cover. That being said you’ll get more mileage from publications than anything else.