A Disabled International Students’ Guide On Securing Remote Research Assistant Position
A few things that you should remember before dwelling into this article — there are no right or wrong ways for going about applying for RA positions. There are multiple ways and I am writing about one of them that I went through, purely based on my experience. I am here for making the process and the information I collected transparent and not for the final say on how things should/will go.
Let’s begin, shall we?
A little about me, I am based in India and am a recent graduate with a Bachelors in triple majors — Psychology, English Literature & Journalism. My main research interests lie in the developmental area and Educational Psychology with a focus on emotions (affective sciences), Language, and mental illness. I started the process of looking into RA positions by the end of May 2021. Prior to this, I had no information or knowledge about the structure of labs that existed or opportunities that one can apply for. It’s from a fellow International student — Anshita Singh, an incoming PhD student that posted a reel about getting the RA position at a lab in the States from whom I became aware. I started to get more interested in understanding how to navigate in securing positions in labs and slowly realized there was a whole lot of learning that really excited me.
While 2021 labs had started to open up in-person, the chances of getting remote positions started getting tougher. The first time I applied to a lab was through the forms that labs usually have on their websites without knowing how many others might be applying to the same and how busy the lab must be for looking at this response. In June 2021 I began applying to labs, started reading what other skillsets I can bring upon if I were selected. I was introduced to Rstudio and started dwelling on what programming was. I slowly went on developing several such skills and adapting to new software that I had previously no experience using. My time went on learning these skillsets and applying to multiple labs from June to December 2021. Most of the responses during this period were either ‘unfortunately, we don’t have an available position in the lab currently’ to getting no response.
By September/October I started to craft a cover letter + CV with the open resources that were available through google searches or grad students that attached their CV. In October, I first cold-emailed a lab in India, where I am currently working as an intern in-person and so grateful for the fruitful experience I am gaining. Additionally, I was also selected in the PREP Program organized by Harvard which helped me a lot in understanding minor errors and missing information in my cover letter and CV through my assigned mentor. (I am so grateful to her and the program that helped me understand and clear so many of my doubts on RA + Grad school)
In this new year (2022), I decided to give one last shot to apply to different RA positions with the corrected and updated versions of my CV and Cover letter. I applied to the same list of labs I had initially emailed in June and to my surprise, cold-emailing turned out a positive in my course. I emailed the PI/students in the lab I was interested in working with after thoroughly going through their work and saw potentially working under their guidance and learning. And with a lot of pride, I am a Research Assistant at two of my priority lab with amazing mentors.
The whole process of applying — cold emailing, the exchange of emails, calls + interviews, and the final status of the position took anything from one to two months and can sometimes take three.
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how I went about it.
Step 1: Make a list of all the labs you are interested in working with. (This is when you know some of your research interests). Use keywords, examples like “emotions” or a certain word that your interests lie in. So, searching labs in different universities becomes easy and you become aware. If you are new like me to understand how many labs are doing the same work, this approach might help. Here’s the screenshot of how I organized my excel sheet and color-coded them according to responses.
Pro tip: Once, you have a list ready, make sure you look into their projects (some of them that might be remote/online and you can still assist and contribute to them remotely) but you can still reach out irrespective but that’s a tip I went with when I was applying.
P.S I color-coded the sheet with certain responses to see how successfully this approach helped me or just to keep in track of the no responses to some but that’s a suggestion and you can do the same if you feel like this won’t overwhelm you.
Step 2: Once the list is ready and you have identified the people you look forward to working with, draft your CV and Cover letter and make sure each is subjective to the labs you are applying for.
Pro tip: Try to keep a standardized template as to how you are going to structure the content — like your intro, skillset, and your research interest remains the same, and the rest paragraph on the work and your motivation might differ lab-wise.
Step 3: The structure I followed for drafting the cover letter was in three paragraphs. Having too long a cover letter might not be good as PIs and members in the lab are usually busy. First paragraph — introduction about me, research interests, experience. Second paragraph — motivation to join the lab, the work I admire in the lab (publication: cite them/ mention the project the lab is working on that you are interested in), third — how I can contribute to the lab (can mention past experience in detail or a certain tool/skillset you used or have) and/or what you can bring on the table differently and what the lab can offer you. Finally, I add one last line expressing my interest in getting on a zoom meeting with them at their preferred available time.
Pro tip: Try putting the cover letter content on the email and get to the point so it’s not lengthy. Why the content on email? Sometimes emails with two or more attachments can get filtered out by institutional email IDs (while that might not be the case for everyone, it happened with me and so worth mentioning this point). I only keep my CV as the only attachment.
Step 4: Email them by attaching the updated CV and wait for a response. I received responses from anywhere between one week to 10 days. Sometimes, there might be no response and you can always check back with them. I waited for a few weeks before proceeding to email other potential labs.
Pro tip: Apply to labs closer to the new semester. (Spring — March, Summer — June, Fall — September)
And if you get a response, Congratulations! All the best for the zoom meeting.
Feel Free to message me on Twitter or Email me with any doubts, I try my best to help students in proofreading or providing advice on their applications.
While all the above can sound daunting or stressful, remember to take breaks. The process is worth it and I am sure there is a lab out there that’s the best fit for you.
P.S I think it’s the motivation and the zeal to pursue research that makes you stand out more than what your CV has.
I will keep posting more articles, if there is anything above you think I missed out here or want me to write on, please let me know. I also made a resources page on my website about grad school, RA positions, etc. There is still a lot for me to figure out and learn. As I proceed with this journey, I will try to keep things transparent and cover/write about it here and on my website :)
