psychundergrad

I am a freshman undergrad at UMSL studying psychology. After undergrad I'm going to graduate school to get a Ph.D or Psy.D in clinical psychology. At this moment, I would like to start doing research in order to begin getting experience working with research and to potentially also build my resume slightly. Two professors would like me to work with me but I'm having a bit of trouble deciding because neither are particularly what I am interested in career-wise.

One is a cognitive psychologist researching cognitive information processing, and the other is researching learning from a developmental psychologist's POV. Either way, I would be a mere research assistant, providing help in the help and taking human subjects for our studies.

Not sure if I should do the cognitive study or developmental because I have only taken PSY101 and don't understand either of these sub-disiciplines very well. Does it even matter if I'm just acting as a research assistant? Should I try both out and not make any commitments? Being really new to this all, I'm just looking for advice from experienced veterans. Thank you!

ncmentor

In my humble opinion - Do it only if you find it absolutely irresistibly interesting.

You are too early in the process of learning what being a college student is all about to be doing anything more than exploring your likes and dislikes and this is not the time to make any commitments that are more than a few weeks long.

RacinReaver

Pick the one you feel you'll get along with better or better mentoring from. If things don't work out you can always bail after the semester or year is over. One of the professors I still keep in touch with from my undergrad I worked with for about nine months. I didn't like the work very much, but we got along very well, and she's served as a great person to talk with when I was going through the whole grad school process.