One question that often comes up during doctoral admissions involves the availability of opportunities for students working in the Anger and Traffic Psychology Lab to publish and/or present during their time in the program. We encourage our doctoral students to present at professional conferences and to submit manuscripts based on their work for publication in peer-reviewed journals.

So while these opportunities are available, how many of our students actually take advantage of them? Not surprisingly, this depends on each student and his or her professional goals. Most of our doctoral students present work based on their master’s thesis and/or dissertation at professional conferences. Some go beyond this and present the results of collaborative research projects, literature reviews, or more clinically focused work as well. With more available conferences than any of us have the time or money to attend, these opportunities are plentiful. Similarly, most of our doctoral students will submit manuscripts based on their master’s thesis and dissertation for publication in peer-reviewed journals. Students seeking academic or other research-oriented careers will typically be involved in additional research projects that aim to produce publishable manuscripts.

Similar opportunities exist for master’s students; however, their condensed time frame is often a limiting factor. Because master’s students have a shorter program of study and do not have the same research requirements as doctoral students, it is less likely that they will complete independent research projects comparable to a thesis. For most master’s students, getting involved in collaborative research projects makes more sense and can still result in presentation and/or publication opportunities. For especially talented master’s students aiming to apply to doctoral programs, independent research projects can sometimes be arranged based on fit and available resources.

Tags: admissions