<p>I'm 21 years old and I only have one semester left as an undergrad. I'm a Psychology major.</p>
<p>I spent 3 semesters at one school and then transferred to my current one. the first 2 semesters I was here, I got As in every class and was on Dean's List, with 3.8 GPA and 3.7 GPA the next. Last semester I was required to take Calculus and Science courses for my general education requirements, and I completely bombed - I got As in everything else, but Cs in both of those, so my GPA was a 3.0</p>
<p>Anyway overall my GPA is 3.442 right now, and my Psychology GPA is around a 3.6</p>
<p>I've been doing an internship at a pretty good hospital and I'm on track to do another internship next semester. My issue is, I feel like I've completely failed at college. My GPA sucks, it's nowhere near where I want it to be. I have no research experience, only the internships. It's too late to do that now. I must have been asleep these past 2 semesters because I didn't realize until now how important research & the honors thesis would have been for me.</p>
<p>What are my options? I want to get into grad school so badly but I feel like it would be impossible. Should I take the GRE and Psych subject test and hope for good grades? Should I take graduate courses after I'm done with undergrad, and THEN apply to grad school for a degree? Should I just give up?</p>
<p>To sum up basically: mediocre grades, no research experience, only some field experience, not a lot of extra curriculars...bleh.</p>
<p>Please help :( I don't know where to go from here.</p>
<p>3.44 is a pretty good GPA - perhaps not enough for a top-5 school, but there are lots of schools where you would have a good chance at entry. Without research experience you may have to settle for a masters program at first, but I still think you have a shot. Apply for the next year’s admissions cycle, and concentrate on finding some research experience, either in your current university or in a professional setting - if you do not get in this year some research will help you more than improved grades in trying the time around next year.</p>
<p>The good news: you very much still have a shoot at graduate schools. Plenty of people who get into strong Psyc programs get all their research experience post-bachelors. It may take 2-3 years to get that experience, but it’s well worth it.</p>
<p>The bad news: your defeatist attitude makes me think graduate school/academia isn’t for you. You’re going to be faced with a lot more adversity and failures/frustrations than that, and if this is almost too much for you to handle, you’re going to be in for a world of hurt in a Ph.D. program.</p>
<p>I’m sorry, I don’t mean to have a defeatist attitude. My undergrad advisor has just made me feel like complete crap and that I’m kind of hopeless. And I started buying myself some books on grad programs for psychology which made me feel sort of worse - I just feel very unprepared and very close to the bad side of the spectrum.</p>
<p>I’d appreciate any advice at all on what I can do upon graduation, before I apply to grad school - extra classes? research? jobs? I’d love to hear.</p>
<p>Work FT as a research assistant/lab tech for 2-3 years and work hard to get a paper published or at least into R&R at a decent journal. Study for the GRE (I know it’s changing in August), but definitely shoot for 90%ile composite (currently, that’s around the 1400 mark) and that’ll most likely balance out your undergraduate GPA for the initial culling/review.</p>
<p>It sounds like you’re going into Clinical Psych? IF you’re going to take any classes, try to take some in intermediate/advanced stats (hopefully through the math department); my understanding is that undergraduate psychology-statistics is weak at preparing you for research.</p>