Talking about your research

[jon0013]

if we are asked about our research how much detail should we talk about? should we talk about our approach/protocol or just give them a general answer (what we are tryin to find, briefly how we are doing it, our results so far and what do you forsee)?

i made the mistake at my very first interview of going into too much detail (i think), almost step by step...i was not prompted to do so....i didnt think that was the best thing to do...

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[riceman04]

if we are asked about our research how much detail should we talk about? should we talk about our approach/protocol or just give them a general answer (what we are tryin to find, briefly how we are doing it, our results so far and what do you forsee)?

i made the mistake at my very first interview of going into too much detail (i think), almost step by step...i was not prompted to do so....i didnt think that was the best thing to do...

One of the people I know on the Temple adcom said that if you list research under your EC's you better know it backwards and forwards.

 

[potato51]

if we are asked about our research how much detail should we talk about? should we talk about our approach/protocol or just give them a general answer (what we are tryin to find, briefly how we are doing it, our results so far and what do you forsee)?

i made the mistake at my very first interview of going into too much detail (i think), almost step by step...i was not prompted to do so....i didnt think that was the best thing to do...

I would give them a general overview of the project (ex. we are studying the effects of overexpressing protein Y in lung cancer cells). And talk a little about the background of the research (ex. previously, protein Y was implicated in the progression of melanoma and we hypothesized that...), and briefly go over your role in the project (ex. My work is mainly in vitro, performing cell culture work, Western blots, PCRs, etc...).

Sometimes interviewers may be a little skeptical of applicants claiming to have done research. They want to know if you're actually involved in the production of data rather than being a glorified glassware cleaner.

So yes, know your research and know how to present it well. Good luck.

 

[BaylorGuy]

To the OP, i would give a brief overview of WHAT you are trying to accomplish and WHY. Aside from this, if the interviewer wants more, then go into the HOW you do your research (I.E. step by step). I think the HOW is more of the interviewer to make sure that you know what you are doing....but i think the WHAT and WHY are more important and they show the depth of your knowledge in your research.

 

[Overeducated]

One of the people I know on the Temple adcom said that if you list research under your EC's you better know it backwards and forwards.

Since you mentioned Temple... I have to say that when I interviewed there, my interviewer didn't even ask me about my research. In fact, at the end of the interview he asked me if there was anything more I wanted to add. I asked if he wanted to hear about my research and he smiled and said, "not really... unless you insist on it." I didn't press it because it seemed clear to me he was more interested in the clinical side of things in terms of his own career... Anyway, I did get an acceptance there. My only point is that each interviewer is different, even within in the same school. When I do talk about it I say exactly the kind of stuff that potato51 mentioned above.

 

[Thanatos]

I had an interviewer ask me about my research and I went into all this crazy detail about what I had done and planned to do before I left and all this.......when I stood up to leave I glanced down at the piece of paper he had been taking notes on during the interview and he had literally written "did research" and put a check mark next to it

I don't think they're interested in the actual details, but they do want to make sure you knew what you were doing.....that you weren't just washing test tubes and making solutions. Try to get across that you really grasped what was going on without boring the hell out of them.

 

[potato51]

I had an interviewer ask me about my research and I went into all this crazy detail about what I had done and planned to do before I left and all this.......when I stood up to leave I glanced down at the piece of paper he had been taking notes on during the interview and he had literally written "did research" and put a check mark next to it

I don't think they're interested in the actual details, but they do want to make sure you knew what you were doing.....that you weren't just washing test tubes and making solutions. Try to get across that you really grasped what was going on without boring the hell out of them.

That's hilarious... incidentally the one interviewer who really probed my research EC's to see if I wasn't just autoclaving glassware was at UT-Houston.

 

[BooMed]

Well, I guess I wouldn't want to hear about most people's projects unless they looked really interesting. Nobody asked about mine, they wanted to talk about yoga. Whatever.

 

[gary5]

Give them a brief summary, maybe a few minutes. Then ask if they'd like to know details. They'll say what they want.