Worth it to apply to PhD programs with limited/ no research experience?

juillet
Mon, 07 Sep 2020 23:57:15 +0000

I’m going to echo what Beaudreau said.

Life is a marathon, not a sprint. Your working career is going to be something like 30-40 years, perhaps more. Working between college and graduate school is certainly not “wasting time” - but what is a waste is rushing into a program that’s not a good fit for you simply because you want to be done faster. You don’t have to rush the process; it’s better for you to take an additional year to find the right fit program for you than it is to rush into a program (and potentially pay for it) only to realize 2-3 years later it’s not the best fit for your career goals. There’s nothing wrong with finishing a master’s and then going back for a PhD; lots of people do that.

That said, the only thing you said that made you consider PhD programs is “corresponding with some people in I/O.” What people in I/O? Whether you need a PhD depends a lot on what you want to do. If you just want to work in industry, a master’s may be all you need. What kind of job/career do you want? Lead with that: decide what you want to do with your career, and then look up job listings for that kind of career. Look up people who have the job you want on LinkedIn and other places. What kind of degrees do they have? That’ll help you decide what kind of degree YOU need to get to achieve your goals.

Do you want to do research as a career? (Follow-up question: if you haven’t ever worked as a research assistant, how do you know that you want to do research as a career?) There are always going to be ‘some’ people who will advise that you get a doctoral degree, but that doesn’t mean they are taking into account your unique career goals. You only need a PhD if you want a career as an independent researcher of some kind

Research experience isn’t a black-and-white, “either it counts or it doesn’t” kind of thing. There are different kinds, and some kinds are more appealing to graduate programs than others. The gold-standard is experience as a research assistant, volunteering or working in a lab alongside a professor on some research in the field you intend to study in graduate school (or a closely related one). A research project that you complete in a class usually isn’t what professors mean when they say research experience; it’s good, but most of the people you’ll be competing with will have more independent research experience and thus will be more competitive than you as an applicant.

If your only experience with research is this class project, then you are not a very competitive candidate to PhD programs. The best thing you can do for your application is to go get some research experience. Many people work or volunteer as a research assistant/associate for 1-3 years after college to improve their competitiveness to PhD programs.