Weekly Report 36: Things Forgotten

I'd forgotten how hard and stressful it was to call and email professionals for research interviews. Even as a second year student in the program, it's still difficult. As you can tell, I've started contacting professionals, in the field of Clinical Psychiatry, to expand my knowledge. Though I've already set up a phone call interview with a professor, I still worry about finding enough individuals to interview. Part of this stems from last year, when I studied Forensic Psychiatry. Forensic Psychiatry is a subspecialty and as a result there were no more than 30 professionals in the field for me to contact. Most of the time less than 1/3 of the individuals you contact call or reply back, which meant I didn't interview many people last year. I quickly found a potential mentor and had Dr. Dunn locked down as my my mentor before the end of Thanksgiving Break. Hopefully, I will be as successful as last year in my pursuit of research. Now, for those potentially going into the program or in it for their first time, here are some tips I wish I did last year:

• Make sure to have a written out 'script" or bullet points of what to mention or ask when on phone calls.

• Be comfortable with reaching out to friends and family to get interviews or contact information.

• Practice phone calls at home around 10 times before ACTUALLY calling professionals to make yourself more comfortable with it. Also practice leaving voicemails, I struggled with this one the most. I would constantly forget to leave a phone number.

~Shrinidhi Joshi

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