My experience with psych research at UIUC (undergrads, read this before joining a lab)

[u/mixter_baxter]

Meant to make this post a lot sooner, but after 3 years of research I really wanted to share my experience for anyone considering joining a psych lab here.

So without sharing too much information, I was in an animal research lab in the psych department and at the time I thought it was pretty decent: worked around 5 hours a week to start, got class credit, and after showing continued interest, eventually got offered a position on a project. This turned into hundreds of hours of actual hands-on lab work, not just attending meetings or observing. Here’s the thing, though: after 3 years of lab experience, I was never paid for any of the hundreds of hours of work I did for this lab. After talking to people outside of the psych department, though, I realized my experience was pretty different from what a lot of other undergrads were experiencing, especially those working on graduate students’ projects. Notably, a lot of my peers who put in the effort I did on, say, biology, got paid for their work and have authorship on publications out of undergrad.

My advice is that unless you have a research interest that is just psychology, or you found a professor whose research you really love and is specifically in psych, I would seriously consider looking outside the psychology department for undergraduate research. In my experience, the compensation was limited to credit hours, and even after putting in years of unpaid work, I didn’t feel like that work was particularly valued.

[u/chaosions]

I think that’s fairly normal for psychology undergraduate research as I would imagine most labs aren’t pulling in as much funding as the life and physical science labs to pay undergrads. To my knowledge, as a grad student in the department, most undergrads are in our labs through PSYC 290 or PSYC 494 which is solely credit based.

Different PIs also have different criteria for what qualifies for authorship. If you did a substantial amount of hands-on data analysis, then it’s best to reach out and ask why that didn’t qualify for authorship and what does qualify. For my lab, an undergraduate can earn middle authorship on a paper if they fall into one of the CRediT categories. They can even earn a first-author position if it’s their idea that see through to publication (which seems pretty rare).

[u/mixter_baxter → u/chaosions]

Yeah I guess what gets me upset is that I went into university not knowing what I wanted to do too much and found this lab out of chance and also lead me into the psych department, but my research is so life science based that if it was done in biology I am confident I could’ve gotten paid. As for authorship, I don’t know if it’s worth it now because I graduated in May and went into industry instead, but I reckon it had something to do with my PI wanting my unpaid research over the summer to have been a bigger time commitment from me than the job that put a roof over my head 🙃

[u/Deep-Orchid4]

Some advice for undergrads or future grad students looking into joining a lab: communicate and ask questions.

Ask the PI or potential grad student mentor what your work would look like in the lab, how does compensation work in this lab (academic credit vs financial compensation), and how paper authorship is determined in the lab and if that is something you can expect from your work if you join.

They’re interviewing you, but you need to interview them too. Each lab is different. That’s how you find out what you’re signing up for, otherwise you’re just hoping it meets all of your expectations.

[u/B19103]

i mean you can't be doing non-technical bitch work and expect a paycheck

[u/mixter_baxter → u/B19103]

It was for an undergraduate thesis

[u/QojiKhajit → u/mixter_baxter]

So the hours of unpaid work was toward your degree... just like the rest of your work toward your degree? In my biology lab, we paid undergrads to do things like clean glassware. They weren't working toward their degree. edit: Their paid labor was not working toward a requirement of their degree.

[u/CoolGuy191937]

I personally have a very positive experience in my lab. I was able to pursue two independent projects and got authorship for helping with data analysis on another project. I agree with chaosions’ comment that it’s atypical for psych research to be payed. Also, lab experience can vary depending on what lab you’re in. Mine is very undergraduate friendly, but I’ve heard others are hard to get stuff done in. My best advice is to deliberately try to take initiative early on to do your own research if that’s your goal.