Undergrad research (neuro) and PhD admissions?

Graduate School
1

<p>I'm sorry for the incoming wall of words and my general cluelessness.</p>

<p>I'm a Junior, with prospective double majors in biology and neuroscience, and hopes for a PhD and career in research. I transferred to my current university as a sophomore, from a school with no neuro program and almost no opportunities for lab research, and it left me a little behind.</p>

<p>I'm currently trying to decide which of two neuro labs I should commit to, as neither are perfectly in sync with my interests (which still need hashing out, to be fair) but one is probably more likely to give me relevant skills and knowledge of useful techniques.</p>

<p><strong><em>So here is my conundrum:</em></strong></p>

<p>Lab #1 hired me a week ago, before I'd even heard back from lab #2. They study social psych with EEG, which is far more soft-science than my hopeful path of research and wouldn't seem to give me any techniques or methods I'd be likely to use again (I'd like to study cephalopods, and almost certainly not humans). It <em>would</em> at least give me a thesis in neuro, and it's possible I could supplement it with more relevant summer work (an REU, ideally).
They are also a very young lab, the professor only having arrived last year, and have yet to actually support an undergraduate thesis, to my knowledge, so I don't know if I should be worried about that.</p>

<p>Lab #2 studies visual system development in ferrets, and interests me much more. However, the professor has told me that the only opportunity available is with a grad student who won't be able to meet with me until October, and that he finds it unlikely that I'd be able to complete a thesis in such little time, as most students he works with accumulate all of their data by the end of their junior year (how??). However, I could theoretically help out with said grad student's project instead of a thesis.</p>

<p>~~~~~~~~~~~~
TL;DR</p>

<p>I don't know whether I have any chance of a thesis in lab #2, and I don't know if a thesis in lab #1 would be worth anything in my desired path.
I don't know if begging and pleading with lab #2 to let me try for a thesis and committing my summer over to them (or forfeiting the thesis and just working on someone else's project) would be any better than doing a thesis with lab #1, and allotting my summer to some cool REU.
I don't know if having so little research experience has already sealed my fate and my only chance at admission to a decent PhD program will be to take several years off in between, anyway.
I don't know if I'm making mountains out of molehills and that translating a thesis in human neuropsych to a more-strongly-neuro, animal-using grad program will be more doable than I realize.</p>

<p>Thanks for your feedback!</p>

2

<p>Correct me if I’m wrong, but i don’t think PhD adimssions programs care whether or not what your research was in is EXACTLY what you plan to do in grad school. They more so care that you’ve had actual research experience and it helps that something was published.</p>

<p>I’d go with #1 if that would actually produce some meaningful results for you.</p>

3

<p>Ctesiphon: </p>

<p>You’re right, undergrad research doesn’t have to coincide <em>exactly</em> with future studies, but accruing at least some level of familiarity with relevant techniques is certainly helpful, right?
I do want to apply for some really good neuro programs, and I’ve seen many people suggest that 2 years of research is the bare minimum. And while it’s possible they’re just crazy, I think it’s fair to expect really good neuro programs to want more than a thesis which amounts to social psych from a candidate with no training in any relevant research methods… but again, I don’t know. </p>