Speaker 1: Welcome to Grad Life Grind. If you're new to this channel, thank you for checking it out and if you're already a subscriber, thanks for being back again. My name is Arielle and I'm a first year PhD student in clinical psychology and in this channel I talk about my life as a grad student and bring you information about the mental health field. Today's video is all about LabMatch and this is my first video about research so I'm really excited to share more with you guys. But basically this week I got matched to a research lab in my PhD program. It's called the Depression Technology and Latino Health Lab so I'm going to explain all about that, my research interests, what the LabMatch process was like and what this means for me going forward. I'm also going to be doing a lot more videos about research soon so if you're not already subscribed, do that right now and let me know in the comments if there's anything about research in psychology that you want to know more about whether it's in undergrad or in a PhD program. I would love to tell you guys more about the research I've done in the past and what I'm looking forward to doing in the future. So first I want to backtrack and explain how research fits into the PhD program. So if you're getting a PhD in psychology or anything really, there's a dissertation component which means that you've done a study and you've done a ton of research actually in a very specific area and you basically write it all up. It's really similar to a thesis but a dissertation is a thesis on steroids and in most PhD programs you're working towards the dissertation throughout but you're also doing some smaller projects throughout the program and that's also true for my program. So research is a huge component of psychology programs. In most traditional programs when you are accepted you're accepted to work with a specific faculty member for the duration of your time at the program and that is part of the reason why PhD programs are so so competitive. Most programs accept five to ten students per year because most faculty can only handle taking on one to two students and not all faculty take students every year. So in my program it's a little bit different because I didn't sign on to work with a faculty member from day one. The way that my program does it is they give us the first year to explore all the different labs and faculty members that are at the program and in the first year we're just responsible for our classes and if we want to volunteer in research either outside of the program or with one of the labs that we're interested in then that's fine but it's not a requirement. So it's really nice because we're able to just adjust to being in grad school for the first year and then we start exploring labs, asking questions, talking to students. So obviously the goal here is to find faculty members who have similar interests as you and find someone who you can see yourself working with for the next four years or longer and that all depends on your interests. So for me I've done a lot of work in CBT which is cognitive behavioral therapy for people with psychosis or schizophrenia and I'll talk more about that in another video. So in grad school I really want to switch gears and work with a different population because my primary career goal is to work with the Latinx population and that means doing research with people in the Latin community but also doing therapy with people who are from a Latino background and that's what was important to me in finding a mentor who could help me work with that group and I also have a really specific interest in intimate partner violence also known as domestic violence. So the overlap of those two makes for a really specific research interest. So this is something that I was conscious of when I was applying to programs. You should generally know what your research interests are when you're shopping around for PhD programs. So going back to the lab match process after exploring the labs that were interesting to me over the past few months I decided to apply to two labs. I had my interviews over Zoom because of COVID unfortunately and they both went really really well and so I did have a first choice because I had been volunteering in my first choice lab for a while and the other lab was a close second. After my interviews I was okay with either one because I knew that I had the flexibility of doing work with the other person as well because what's really awesome about my program is that collaboration is encouraged and that's not always the case in other programs from what I've heard. Because you sign on to work with one person in a traditional program in my program because things are a little bit more open and collaborative it's totally fine to work with more than one person but you do have a primary lab and a primary advisor. So lab match was on Monday and today's Thursday and the way that it is set up is kind of nerve-wracking. Basically at 5 p.m you're supposed to be available either by phone or email and by that time faculty members would have interviewed you and they would rank the students in order of preference and then you rank the labs you apply to in order of preference. So the point of the ranking system is that most faculty members can only take two to three students into their lab each year so it does get kind of competitive and what happens is at 5 p.m you get a notification about whether you were accepted, waitlisted, or denied and you can choose if you are given an offer to accept it or to hold it in case you get another offer that you want more. And that means that as people accept or decline offers faculty members can move down on their list. So at five o'clock I got an email from my second choice lab first saying that I was at the top of the waitlist and it wasn't really an offer so I didn't do anything and then I waited another like two or three minutes and I got an acceptance from my first choice lab and as I was replying I got the acceptance from the second choice lab so I was like oh my gosh I was super overjoyed that I had the flexibility to choose but I knew that I wanted to go with the first choice from the beginning so I was really happy to accept and decline but also tell the other faculty member that I'm happy and excited that we can collaborate in the future. But it was a super exciting and nerve-wracking process even though I felt pretty confident in my choices you're still being evaluated and you're still waiting to hear from your first choice and to see whether you're their first choice too. So like I said I'm really pumped to be in the depression technology and Latino health lab and the faculty member I'm working with has worked over a long period of time with Latina women and in the prevention of postpartum depression and so where our overlap is is of course in working with Latina women but there's also a strong link between postpartum depression and intimate partner violence so that's basically where we have shared interests and the point of this video is to explain what happens now or what that means. So essentially this faculty advisor will be my dissertation advisor usually what that means is doing one or two smaller studies over the next year or two to gather some preliminary evidence and then see what I want to hone in on for the dissertation and I'm really excited for the opportunity and I'll be updating you guys as it goes along but the reason why I'm sharing this with you guys is because this is a huge part of what happens in a PhD program we are taking classes we're doing clinical training but the third and really huge part of it is research and the dissertation process and I'm going to be learning more about that as I move along in the program. My dissertation still feels really far away and the thought of it is a little daunting but I know that with the faculty advisor that I have now I'm going to be able to do step by step and break it down over the next couple of years and hopefully do something really really awesome that I'm super passionate about. So my plans for you guys are to do some videos about the research I've done in the past and how that prepared me for graduate school tell you guys a little bit more about my interests what it means to do research in psychology what it means to do a thesis because I did one in undergrad and in a master's program you have to do a thesis as well so I'm just going to be taking you guys along the process with me and I really hope that this video was helpful and I hope that if you have a specific research interest that you want to pursue a career in that this video inspired you and gives you a little taste of how exciting and how gratifying it feels to get opportunities that will propel you forward towards those goals. At the time I'm recording this COVID-19 and quarantine are still in full effect so I really hope that you're safe and healthy and that your loved ones are too. Thank you so much for watching this video and I hope you'll check back in next time.