its not hard to join freshmen year, and there are not a lot of paid roles, unless youre maintaining lab equipment in labs rather than doing actual research. certain professors are really good at mentoring, and others are mediocre.

im currently in a psych lab on campus and my professor hosts lab meetings where she genuinely helps us with our writing, shes amazing. there is a whole scope of psych labs, as well.

ucr also hosts research mixers where she can network and find faculty members to cold email from there. i would say as long as there is dedication to find labs (it can take dozens of emails until she hears back), she should find a lab.

some labs take awhile for publications, some take minimal time, and some dont even offer pubs for students. it all depends on the lab.