How to Boost Your Research Application and Use Community Resources

Message from Sachi

Thank you all for the love on the Paid Summer Programs for Life Science & Health Science Students in Canada newsletter - I hope you all find it useful! Please make sure to pass it on ❤️ 

November is all about balancing the side quests - college events, writing a blog for my program, starting the behavioural science module, and more. I can’t believe we’re in our final weeks of 2024.

This week, I invited one of my friends, Juliane, to share her story. Juliane shares so many great insights about breaking into research, taking a gap year, and spotlighting the Community of Support program.

What you’ll learn from Juliane:

• Juliane’s decision to take a gap year after undergrad, and start her job as a Clinical Research Project Assistant at SickKids

• Juliane’s research portfolio, including both paid and unpaid positions

• Spotlight on the Community of Support (COS) Program at University of Toronto, which aims to increase the amount of applicants in medicine and other similar programs from underrepresented groups, economically disadvantaged, disabled and non-traditional applicants

Enjoy today’s read,

Sachi 💌 

Spotlight: Community of Support (COS) Initiative

The Community of Support (COS) is collaborative initiative with medical schools across Canada to supporting learners that face systemic barriers on their journey towards academic programs in Research and Health Science Education, Medical Education (MD, Physician Assistant, Medical Radiation Sciences), Rehabilitation Science (Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Speech Language Pathology). We provide admissions information, research opportunities, volunteering and leadership opportunities and support within the application process (free CASPer and MCAT prep, application support, interview prep, etc..). If you are looking for support and community in the next steps of your academic career, this is the place for you! COS is open to any college or university student or graduate. You can join here - Community of Support | Temerty Faculty of Medicine

How to Boost your Research Application and use Community Resources: Interview with Juliane

First off, tell us about your journey so far. Where do you study, what inspired you to pursue this, and what’s next? What else do you like to do outside of studying?

Hey there! My name is Juliane (she/her). I graduated this past spring from the University of Ottawa with an Honours Bachelors in Health Sciences with a Minor in Conflict Studies and Human Rights. Recently, I started working full-time as a Clinical Research Project Assistant at SickKids in the Jibb Lab, where our goal is to understand and optimize psychosocial outcomes of patients with childhood cancer and their families. This has been my dream job for the past year, and I would’ve never imagined it would work out the way it did for me. 

Getting to where I am at right now was definitely a journey. Around this time last year I was in my last semester of school, debating whether I should apply for Masters’s programs or take the year off to decide what I wanted to do. My initial plan was to take a one-year Master’s program, and use that year to decide whether I should pursue Physician Assistant or medical school programs. To be honest, the idea of taking a year off filled me up with a lot of anxiety. I could not initially picture myself not doing anything school-related for a full-year, and also struggled with the concept of “feeling behind” others, given that I had also graduated a year later to finish up the Minor portion of my degree. 

The time between finishing my courses (Dec 2023) and Spring Convocation (June 2024) was pretty transformative in terms of healing those anxious and negative mindset I had.  In January, I was working full-time in a position I knew was not suited for me and felt draining to be in, and also rushed an application to a singular graduate program I wasn’t fully committed to. After not getting accepted into that program, I realized that for the first time in my life, my life was truly up to me and that I had to make the most of navigating the unknown. And so, I made the decision to quit my job, without anything lined up like I usually would. At first I felt stir-crazy, having absolutely nothing to do for the first time in my life. But with nothing, always comes something, and so I began to reconnect with my old hobbies that I had. I bought a Nintendo Switch as a graduation present to myself to get into gaming again, ceramic painting, going to the gym more frequently and going on my first solo trip back home to the Philippines! It was really healing to reconnect to my roots outside of academia, and it also helped me to reaffirm that taking a year off was right for me. 

Roughly two weeks before graduation, I saw the job posting for the Jibb Lab on the SickKids website. Reading the description on what the lab was about, I knew in my gut it was the perfect fit for me, and I submitted my application. Six days after graduation, I had checked my email in my hotel room in the Philippines the night after I landed, and saw that I had gotten an invitation for the first screening for the position, and that in 30 minutes (plus a 12 hour time difference), the last time slot for a screening interview was coming up. I conducted the screening interview with my now co-worker in a closed breakfast area, on my phone with a bad internet connection and all. I didn’t hear anything back the whole month I was away so I assumed I didn’t get it, but then I was invited to another interview, and the rest is history.

While working, I am applying for Master’s programs this cycle, mainly in the areas of medical anthropology and health research. I aspire to contribute to solutions towards culturally-responsive healthcare, by researching the relationship between culture and mental health, something I’m deeply passionate about. I consider this topic to be under the umbrella of my passion for solving health inequities in racialized communities. Additionally, I hope to develop research and clinical approaches to make them multidisciplinary and people-led. I pinpointed on my specific research interests after writing about culture-bound syndromes in my psychopathology class for a free topic paper. While hoping to do a million things, my dream right now is to become a healthcare provider and researcher, perhaps in palliative care or family medicine. 

Outside of work and academic pursuits, I like doing activities and hobbies that speak to my life-long passion of art and learning. I love exploring new restaurants, playing video games, going to concerts and art events, volunteering, traveling, or trying new experiences. For example, I recently experienced going to a spin class for the first time to create variety into my fitness journey. 

Can you walk us through your research journey, as you’ve worked at places like SickKids, TMU, and more? How did you get these opportunities and were they paid/unpaid, what did you do, and more?

University of Ottawa, Faculty of Psychology (unpaid)

Towards the end of the second semester of my second year, I came across this posting for volunteer research assistants for the Laboratory for Culture and Mental Health Disparities on the uOttawa Community Engagement Navigator, a platform where students can find volunteer positions within campus (e.g. school clubs, labs) and the local community. This in hindsight was a really lucky find for me, as I had only recently begun getting interested in getting involved in research that broadly covered health inequities across racialized groups and mental health. Because of the numerous research projects the lab was recruiting volunteer research assistants for, I outlined these specific interests to the graduate student who was interviewing me. I ended up working on a research project that observed the prevalence of Anti-Black racial biases across ethnoracial groups, and their impact on the mental health of Black Americans. This led to my first co-authorship and publication in Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne.

Faculty of Science, Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) (paid) 

I worked remotely as a Research Assistant in the Department of Chemistry and Biology, creating a literature review on equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) education with Dr. Imogen Coe. I found this job posting on TMU’s Research Staff Opportunities job board.

SickKids Research Institute, Translational Medicine (paid) 

In the summer of 2022, I was a Research Student in the SickKids Summer Research Undergraduate Program (SSuRe) in Translational Medicine. I was in Dr. Estelle Gauda’s lab where I worked on a project observing the effectiveness of a novel treatment for bronchopulmonary dysplasia, a lung disease that affects premature babies. This program also gave me the opportunity to present a research poster at the SSuRE Symposium. Even though it was online due to COVID, I was still really nervous about public speaking. However, the research lab was so supportive in helping me practice and giving me feedback, and I ended up winning a prize for Top Presentation!

Research Thesis Student in the Faculty of Health Sciences (unpaid)

In my final semester of undergraduate studies, I took the Research Project course (HSS4900) in my program which gave me the opportunity to do a research project under a supervisor. Under the supervision of Dr. Ivy Bourgeault, my thesis was on characterizing the work and non-work mental health experiences of Canadian healthcare workers by ethnicity. 

SickKids, Child Health Evaluative Sciences (paid)

I am currently working full-time as a Clinical Research Project Assistant in the Jibb Lab, where I am juggling a few research projects geared towards understanding the experiences and psychosocial outcomes of childhood cancer patients, survivors and their families. I applied to this position via the SickKids external job board. I interviewed for this job throughout the summer; going through a screening interview, virtual interview, and in-person interview. I began this position at the beginning of September, and I’ve been loving it so far!

You’ve been able to do many internships and research placements during undergrad. What type of job advice do you have for students when it comes to resumes, cover letters, networking, and more? Please also share any resources (ex: websites, social media, etc) that have helped you with your job search

Disclaimer: I am not a professional resume coach, job consultant, recruiter or any similar role that provides professional assistance in resume building, preparing for job interviews, and connecting to jobs. These recommendations are based on my own personal experience in job searching and applying, which may differ from the experiences of other applicants. Following these tips is not a guarantee of securing interviews or positions for internships and jobs. I encourage everyone to consult a variety of resources.

Resumes, Curriculum Vitaes (CVs), and Cover Letters

• The first thing I did was create a curriculum vitae (CV). This is essentially a list of academic, professional and extracurricular positions and achievements you’ve ever had. While this is mostly used for academic-based jobs such as research, I highly recommend doing this because you can use this as a base for any resumes you create, especially if you are catering them to a specific position.

• Instead of listing job responsibilities, list achievements: Provide concrete examples of what you accomplished or brought to your previous roles. This could make your resume stand out, as employers can have a concrete understanding of your skills and potential. This is my favorite tip as it can work with any role, regardless of your level of involvement, and can make such a small yet huge difference. 

  • For example: “Assisted customers with in selecting from our range of skincare products according to their needs” versus: “Assisted 20+ customers per day in selecting from our range of skincare products according to their needs” 

• One resource I absolutely look at time and time again is this guide on CVs and cover letters from Harvard University, as they have a list of action verbs (e.g. assisted, lead) to make your resume sound professional, as well as examples of CVs and cover letters. 

• Writing cover letters can be super time-consuming and sometimes downright annoying, but they are unfortunately required for many positions these days. Something that I did to help make this task less tedious is to have ready-to-go resume templates for each type of position I was looking for (e.g. one for research, administrative, customer service), and to just cater it for each position. I tend to follow this general formula for cover letter templates:

Searching and Applying to Research Positions 

• Be specific about your Google Search! And don’t be afraid to look at the next page of Google. Once I figured out what my research interests were, I would search for something along the lines of “[university] psychology labs” and just keep scrolling. You never know what you might find. 

Interview preparation

Something I did which really helped me to prepare for interviews is to look at a list of most common interview questions, and to reflect on these using the STAR (situation, task, action, result) method. I put some of these into a Google Sheet where I filled it out according to past experiences I had and would study it before interviews. This way, I wouldn’t have to freeze and look back into my life for any time I made a mistake or had a conflict at work and how I got myself out of it. 

What advice do you have for students (especially high school + undergrads) who want to get research experience, especially if they don’t have any experience yet? 

• Volunteer! This is honestly one of the most common ways to start out in research. You can reach out to professors or labs that align with your research interests and tell them that you want to become a volunteer research assistant. This is especially beneficial if you’re juggling school or work as you can tell supervisors how many hours you’re able to contribute each week. 

• When I first began to apply for research positions, I wanted to show off my writing skills as I knew it was an essential skill for research, but I didn’t necessarily have an idea how to do so. I was also afraid my low GPA would be a huge hindering factor in getting research positions, so I really wanted to showcase a work of mine that somewhat showed my abilities to conduct research. I came up with the idea of submitting a writing sample of one of my first university-level assignments alongside my resume in my cold emails to professors. This particular assignment was actually a free-topic paper I wrote for my first-year English class, where I described the effects of Eurocentric education curriculums on representations of Asian communities and culture in North America. In hindsight, I think I was super proud of this paper at the time because it was something I was deeply passionate about, and that’s what led me to attach it to my emails. Though I am not sure if this was looked at most of the time, I think it really strengthened my application that led me to securing my first research position as my supervisor gave me positive feedback for this paper during our call.

Can you tell us about the COS-RASI program at UofT and how that has helped you obtain opportunities? How can Invite Health readers get involved? 

The Community of Support (Instagram/Twitter: @cos_uoft) program is an initiative by the University of Toronto which aims to increase the amount of applicants in medicine and other similar programs from underrepresented groups (i.e. Black, Indigenous, Filipino, Latin American), economically disadvantaged, disabled and non-traditional applicants. They provide a variety of different workshops, presentations and mentorship, but I’ll be talking specifically about the Research Support Application Initiative (COS-RASI). 

The COS-RASI program focuses specifically on providing access to resources and mentorship to assist in creating research CVs and graduate school applications, as well as a list of paid summer research positions. Many summer research programs have partnerships with COS-RASI to allocate funding for applicants who are coming from this program. In my case, my supervisor in the SSuRe program was looking specifically to take in a student coming from the COS-RASI program, which was advertised in the list of research opportunities provided to us. Additionally, I was given the Opportunity Summer Studentship Award to support my salary in this program, which is awarded to the top 10 applicants. I was also given the opportunity to take free MCAT workshops hosted by current medical students, though I had to stop at the time due to mental health reasons. 

I strongly believe that COS is an amazing initiative that was pivotal in my research journey. If you would like to become a mentee, you can get involved to join this community here (application link for mentees). You can also become a volunteer mentor, just like I am this year! If you are a graduate student or someone with lots of research experience and are interested in mentoring students, you can sign up here: Office of Access and Outreach Volunteering Opportunities | Temerty Faculty of Medicine

What types of experiential learning opportunities did you have in undergrad that you think were the most pivotal in getting you to where you are today?

uOttawa Work-Study: this program allowed me to work in a variety of paid part-time positions at my university while I was in full-time school. Because my supervisors were super understanding I was in school, they accommodated my work hours according to my school schedule. I found this program was super beneficial in allowing me to explore different jobs and meet many people in my university. My positions included being a medical records assistant, administrative assistant and a student ambassador!

Volunteering: I took up many volunteer roles related to healthcare as a hospital volunteer at The Ottawa Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) as an emergency department research volunteer, to help me gain experience and figure out what I wanted to do with my health sciences degree. One of my favorite positions was at Roger Neilson Children’s Hospice as a Child Play Volunteer, where I got to work with the recreational therapy team to lead individual and group activities for patients receiving respite care. I also assisted in some bereavement events for siblings and parents. I applied to all of these positions directly on their websites.

Where can students go if they want to learn more about your experiences?

You can message me on LinkedIn!

Is there any final advice or resources that you would like to share with Invite Health readers?

Throughout my undergrad, I’ve come to truly believe that experience beats out theory every time. I can confidently say that every research experience, job, and volunteer position I’ve had taught me something a little more about myself and what I was capable of, no matter how long I was there, even if it didn’t end up being a good match. 

If you had told me 5 years ago that research would become one of my biggest passions and that I, myself, would become a researcher, I would’ve honestly laughed in your face. Up until I entered university, I didn’t even know that you could do research as an undergraduate or high school student. Even until my second year, I didn’t believe it as a possibility for myself, because of how daunting it seemed. I wasn’t the best student so my grades weren’t that high, and it felt reserved only for the “super smart” ones. Even if it feels out of reach, I hope you feel empowered to just try - even if it’s not in research, but to take a leap to apply to that scary internship, job, or opportunity. Besides, the worst thing they can say is no, and that means you get the chance to either try again or discover something else that’s better for you.

Jobs, Opportunities & Resources 💻️ 

Most of these resources are reposted on Invite Health’s LinkedIn page.

• Fellowship — TIME Initiative 

  • Read our interview with Maggie Li, who completed the fellowship: How to Break into Longevity and Biotech with an Engineering Background 

• Fully Funded MSc + PhD Opportunity in Women’s Health

• Job posting – Administrative Assistant at Immigrant Women Services Ottawa (IWSO) (paid)

• Submission of interest: Global Health Impact Summit 2025 - CanWaCH

• ResearchNet - RechercheNet 

• Summer Health Professions Education Program

• Communications Pack - Research Forum 2025: Call for Contributors - Elrha

• Zuckerman Fellowship | Harvard Kennedy School 

• 2025 Youth Summit - Oxfam Canada 

• USA Health Job Boards

• Canadian student organizations advancing diversity & equity in medicine

• PAHO Careers

• Student Advancement Research (StAR) Program 2025 for Black, Filipino, and Indigenous high school students

• UHN Summer Research Information Session

About Invite Health 💌 

I started Invite Health for my younger self who was trying to figure out what to do with my health sci degree that wasn’t a career in medicine.

Today, I’d say this quote is the primary reason I continue to build Invite Health:

The mission of Invite Health is to close this talent-opportunity gap for students in the life and health sciences.

Since 2022, we’re the leading resource for students figuring out what to do with a life sci / health sci degree. I interview students pursuing diverse careers in healthcare, and how they got there - no gatekeeping here. Every newsletter is rich with resources and insights.

Our main channel is this newsletter, and I occasionally share resources on social media (LinkedIn and Instagram).

You can read more about why I built Invite Health here

How to get the most out of Invite Health 🫶

1. Connect with the interviewees: At the end of every newsletter, the interviewees leave their contact information for you to contact them. In your message, mention that you learned about their journey through Invite Health, and that you’re curious to learn more!

2. Share the word: Share Invite Health with your friends and networks. Start a conversation about something you learned- an opportunity, a piece of advice, or a recommendation that an interviewee made.

3. Bet on yourself: Apply to the opportunities that are shared in the newsletters. You have nothing to lose, and so much to gain. Circling back to point #1 - always reach out to the interviewees if you want advice!

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How I Built Invite Health - BTS 🌼

I’m starting a series where I share insights on how I built Invite Health. In two years, I’ve grown Invite Health organically (meaning, I’ve spent $0) to 1,200+ subscribers, building it sustainably as a solo student founder throughout undergrad and Master’s.

Build an Impact Gallery

If you’re working in the impact space, I’d recommend building an Impact Gallery. It’s like a photo gallery, but with screenshots of messages & posts about how your work has impacted others. You can make a private impact gallery: collect screenshots and create a personal album in your camera roll. You can also make a public Impact Gallery. For example, I created an Impact Gallery on Notion as part of my portfolio (and now it’s linked at the bottom of my newsletter). In line with building in public, I also share some of the impactful messages on my Instagram stories, as LinkedIn posts, and as part of my newsletter intros. The gallery is a great source for motivation and reminder of your work’s impact!

Free Links & Resources 🫰 

• Applying to Grad Schools Notion Guide by Sachi

• 15 Paid Summer Research Programs in Canada

• Paid Summer Programs in Research, Policy, Tech, etc.

• Paid Summer Programs for Life Science & Health Science Students in Canada

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