Hi,

I have been trying for a Phd placement in Psychology for sometime now. One of the unis that recently rejected my application said that i did not have research experience hence my application was not accepted. I have been working as a therapist for past 8 years so have a field experience but no research experience.

Taking a research assistants post seems to be an answer but i am not sure if UK unis take an international student as a research assistant in the field of psychology.

Can anyone tell me if they know of anything about it.

Also is there another way for me to get the research experience?

nevyn

Most RA positions I've seen are fine with international students so long as you are allowed to work in UK/EU. At the interview they'll normally collect and photocopy some sort of proof of that.

great. but would they also take people who are in their home country and are applying from there?

Nevyn

Hey Nevyn, I don't see why not- I'm in a psychology department and we have plenty of research assistants and PhD students here who are international students. Do you have a psychology background, i.e. BSc, MSc etc? For psychology most places will ask for an MSc with a significant research component to be considered for a PhD, or alternatively a BSc and research assistant post but then a lot of research assistant posts also go to people with MScs. So if you don't have an MSc, that might be the way to go. If you do one that is officially registered as a research degree then that might help, and then if you still can't get a PhD then a year or two as a research assistant can often lead to a fully funded PhD- I've seen that happen plenty of times in our department! Good luck with it! KB

actually i have a MSc by research from UK. i was told that i needed more experience in field, so i got it but as it turned out they wanted research experience. Never realised that.

Well lets see. Thanks for replying it makes me hope. I dont regret working in therapy as i know it has taught me a lot but i want to now go back to research. I guess i just have to keep on applying for research assistant post.

Thanks :)
N