how specific should career goals be?

[MD4life]

I was just wondering, does it hurt your application to give a specific area of interest for example Malaria or is it safer to generalize under pathogenic diseases?
thanks Y'all

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[DarkChild]

yeah - you might not want to be that specific, unless you have a very very good reason for it. see it from the Adcom's point of view - they will wonder why you are being so specific. I dont think it really hurts you - but you better have a reason other wise you'd look silly

 

[jot]

edit: post was rather convoluted


lets say you have a couple areas of interest (i.e. developmental, neuro, and computational perhaps) - should you stick with one and let your research experiences demonstrate your interest in the others - or its ok to leave it kinda open ended as to specific fields (as long as you aren't saying - "i want to do my phd in science").

i do, however, know of people whos work interests me, but they are also in various fields.

do schools try to match you up with people that you have had the same research experiences or same future goals (Assuming they aren't the same)? anybody know how that is done?
-jot

 

[DarkChild]

well at Upenn, I was matched up with people with similar interests (roughly). BUT there was one guy who did EXACTLY what I spent two years doing - development neurobiology and guidance cues....
does that help at all??

 

[exigente chica]

My friend interviewed last year, and she was matched with someone that had done the same research, it was the rival PI. He grilled her about everything. You have to know your stuff. Ooh.