As a future clinician, your job will require you to use strong critical thinking skills on the job and to remain committed to lifelong learning. Getting involved in an independent study project or other research is a great way to demonstrate that you not only enjoy learning new things but also that you find it satisfying to apply what you learn. If you would like to get involved in research at CU Boulder, here is the approach we recommend to get your foot in the door (you may watch a full video presentation on this topic; the password is CEprehealth):
- Start by reviewing the research pages for the labs on campus. The two departments that tend to be most open to hiring nontraditional pre-health students as volunteer undergraduate research assistants are Psychology and Neuroscience and Integrative Physiology. (Often, the research section of the departmental website takes you to a landing page for a given professor's lab. Be sure to click through to the research group's full-fledged website.)
- Once you've identified 2-4 research groups that are doing work that especially interests you, educate yourself about their research. Review the information posted on their website to start, but then go deeper by pulling up ~3 of their recent articles: read the Abstracts, Introductions, and Discussions of those papers.
- Contact the labs. Some labs have a volunteer interest form for you to fill out. Others direct you to email a contact person in the lab.
Topics to cover in your initial inquiry to a lab
- Succinctly, explain why you are interested in the specific research going on in that lab:
- Once you have reviewed the information on the lab's website and have reviewed a few of their recent research articles, let them know why you are drawn to their specific area of research. If you have some sort of personal connection to the research topic, let them know.
- Identify yourself as an adult post-baccalaureate student. Succinctly, tell them a little about your background, identifying your transferable skills. If you have a recent resume handy, provide it.
- Note: Transferrable skills include those that could apply to the research position itself, but also those that will assure them that you'll be a dedicated and dependable worker.
- Most labs are looking for a time commitment of at least 8 h/wk during business hours for at least two semesters. Let them know what kind of time commitment you'll be able to make. It takes time to train a new person; if they train you, they'd like you to stick around and to keep a consistent schedule so your work is truly helping them progress.
After your initial inquiry
- It is fairly common for initial inquires to go unanswered. Put a reminder in your calendar to send a polite follow-up via email a week later.
- Here's what's going on: Most labs on campus receive multiple inquiries per week, year-round, from students expressing interest in volunteering in their lab. They are not able to respond personally to every inquiry, but they keep an eye out for inquiries from people who seem like a particularly good match.
- Here's what's going on: Most labs on campus receive multiple inquiries per week, year-round, from students expressing interest in volunteering in their lab. They are not able to respond personally to every inquiry, but they keep an eye out for inquiries from people who seem like a particularly good match.
- If you receive a positive response from a lab but they indicate that they don't have any volunteer openings at the moment, ask if they might consider letting you sit in on lab meetings or journal club meetings. It's easier for them to say "yes" to this request because they don't have to train you or save work for you to do; they're holding those meetings already. This can be a great way to get your foot in the door; you'll start to learn more about their work and will get to know some of the people in the group. Then, if you're liking it and they like you, you'd be an obvious person for them to offer a future volunteer position to.
- Lab meetings: At each meeting, one of the researchers in the group (it could be an undergrad, a grad student, or a post-doc) will share their current work with the rest of the group, and then the group will offer feedback and suggestions.
- Journal Club meetings: Attendees will be directed to read a primary research article in advance. Then, the group will come together to critique the experimental design and the authors' interpretations of the results, as well as to discuss implications for their own work.
Once you get started in research
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Do your very best to attend that research group's lab meetings or journal club meetings every time they are held. Doing so can give you tremendous insight into best practices in experimental design, statistical approaches, interpretation of data, and presenting scientific findings ... and that set of insights is precisely the reason why it's so valuable for future clinicians to gain research experience. Be ready to feel like they are speaking Greek. This is normal. You probably won't follow the conversation very well at first but do your best, writing down any vocab words or concepts that you need to look up at home. If you can tolerate that discomfort at first, you WILL get better and better at understanding what they are talking about ... and then it will start to get very interesting!