In this episode we speak with psychologist Merve Armağan, who works as a research fellow at Harvard University and has begun her doctorate at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. The conversation covers how she built international research experience during her undergraduate years, how hundreds of cold emails opened doors to laboratories, the difference between a research fellow and an undergraduate research assistant, and why focusing on learning rather than labels offers a more sustainable path to success.
Merve graduated from Istanbul Şehir University's psychology program in 2016. Throughout university she expanded her network through summer schools and research assistantships: in her first summer she took credited courses in organizational psychology and public speaking at a California university and transferred the credits to her home institution. In her second year she was accepted to a research center's summer program, and in her third year she worked as a research assistant at Harvard. After graduation she returned to Harvard as a research assistant—a post-baccalaureate role often translated into Turkish as "research associate"—and during the conversation she also describes starting her PhD at UMass Lowell. Her path rests less on locking onto a single prestigious school and more on becoming visible in the field and building relationships with the right people.
She explains that research assistant applications are not handled through a central portal, as most people assume, but by writing to laboratories and professors one by one. She sent roughly a hundred emails; when acceptances came in, she began an internship in Dan Gilbert's lab and worked in the same period in Amy Cuddy's lab at Harvard Business School. Because her core interest was intergroup conflict and social psychology, she even arranged a meeting with James Sidanius, a towering figure in the field, during the winter term and met with him carrying her CV. After graduation she moved into a one-year position as a post-bac research assistant. The doctoral side is far more formal: GRE, TOEFL, a statement of purpose, reference letters from five professors, and about fourteen applications. The process is heavy in both time and emotional cost; even while working in the lab, there were weeks set aside solely for applications. She was also invited to interview at Clark University during the PhD application cycle; after accepting UMass Lowell, she will continue research while taking her own courses and handling teaching assistant duties—teaching, grading, and proctoring exams. For reference letters she asked five professors for support; because each school typically wants three, she tried to distribute combinations so as not to overload any one mentor. Application deadlines cluster between December and January, and she says the waiting period is more draining than the applications themselves.
She draws a clear line between the research fellow role and undergraduate assistantship. During her bachelor's she mostly did data entry, literature summaries, and running participants; after graduation she was given work closer to what a doctoral candidate might do—literature reviews, scale selection, and end-to-end responsibility for a project. She also stresses that the heaviest statistical interpretation usually stays with professors and that assistants are not expected to perform miracles—a practical frame that lowers application anxiety.
She notes that summer schools do not have admission thresholds as harsh as doctoral programs; you move forward with a form explaining English proficiency and why you want the program. She went through a similar persuasion process for a summer school in Utrecht. After experiences in happiness and organizational psychology, her research focus shifted toward discrimination, minority–majority dynamics, and especially religious discrimination and headscarf discrimination; she wrote her doctoral statements of purpose around the thesis that elite minorities can oppress majorities. In the long term she wants to move toward migration psychology: she aims to transform the reality of Syrian migration in Turkey into a literature nourished by local readings, not only Western concept sets.
She says she learned most application resources largely on her own from the internet. In her second year, before she knew her field well, she emailed a wide range—from schizophrenia to clinical and organizational psychology—and over time she professionalized her messages. Her first emails were generic; later she grew more serious by using surnames and titles. She is careful to share her experience so that not everyone has to discover America from scratch.
For students in the preference period, she recommends looking at faculty, lab resources, professors' publications, and English-language academic training before campus aesthetics. Even if you go clinical, she says English education is essential to master the literature; she does not think most weekend short courses go very deep. She tells first-year undergraduates not to wait because it feels "too early"; they should build project and lab relationships with their own professors first, then expand to other universities and abroad. She also tried visiting professors at other Turkish universities and joining their work. She reminds listeners that options such as integrated doctoral programs and fully funded study only become understandable once you talk with someone who has lived them.
She defines success not as chasing the Harvard label but along the axes of learning, gaining, and giving back. Ambition should stay measured; when the means becomes the end, you stop seeing clearly. She often receives emails asking "how do I get into Harvard," yet she emphasizes that she set out for contribution to the field and country, not for the label. Her recommendation for the series is Mehmet Efe Akengin, an Istanbul Erkek Lisesi graduate who double-majors in computer science and political science at MIT.
Highlights: building a lab network through cold email · research fellow vs undergraduate assistant · GRE/TOEFL + 14 PhD applications · the reality of summer schools · migration and discrimination research · learning over labels · early lab experience · what integrated PhD programs mean
