Getting Research as a DIY Student?

Hello y’all! I’m just starting on this journey, but turned down a bunch of postbacc programs (including GW and a few others often discussed on here) to do a DIY program for financial and family reasons. I’m taking my pre-req classes at my local CC and some upper level courses that I qualify for at a local, well regarded and rigorous university (mostly because a four credit class is $500 at the CC and $1,000+ at the university, but class availability is also a major issue at the university too).

I’ve been able to get myself set-up for most of the major things that I need to do in order to make this possible over the next two years (set-up volunteering opportunities, a course log on what to take for the next two years, will start unpaid clinical volunteering in August, etc), but keep coming back to having no idea about what to do to get research experience since I don’t really have any direct scientific experience from undergrad and the summer courses I’ve taken thus far.

What exactly did y’all that did DIY programs do to get opportunities to engage in research? I’ve thought about emailing public health and other medical-adjacent social science faculty at the four year and some other nearby colleges seeking opportunities to aid as an unpaid assistant or volunteer, but not sure if that’ll actually work.

If it’s relevant, I recently graduated undergrad with a social science degree and exactly a 3.8 gpa. Most of my internship experience is in political advocacy related work, but I have a bit of experience doing policy research from when I was an intern for a congressional office.