Undergraduate students have the opportunity to work in the laboratory for course credit. The course credit can be in LING (Linguistics), PSYC (Psychology), or NRSC (Neuroscience). The level will be determined by the student’s year in college (199, 299, 399, or 499). Honors students have the opportunity to sign up for Honors Independent Study (299H, 399H, or 499H.) The recommended amount of credit is 3 units for 9-10 hours of work per week. Here are some examples of possible work that may be involved in independent study: preparing stimuli for experiments on language and cognition, running subjects in experiments, assisting with data analysis, writing up a report or giving a presentation at the lab meeting at the end of the semester about the project.
Undergraduate students who are work-study eligible may work in the laboratory through the Cognitive Science Program.
Sometimes undergraduate research assistants do have paid positions in the lab; however, the first semester of working in the lab without prior research experience is typically not a paid position.
The experience of working in the laboratory as an undergraduate research assistant has helped many students attain admission to graduate programs in psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, biology, medicine, and other related fields.