Tell me about yourself...

[Aninha]

Hi!
I've heard that this is one of the most important questions interviewers can ask you...but it can be tricky and hard to answer sometimes...
What are you supposed to say? Talk about your academic life... work...personal life...personality...strenghts? What?
They tell you that they want to know about you during the interview...but I've also read in several websites that they don't really want to know about your personal life...But I don't know if vet school is different...
What do you guys think?

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[InfiniVet]

As one fantastic person in my life told me:

It's analogous to going on a first date.

You hit the brief highlights, say interesting things about yourself with the analogous attitude of "I hope you like me, because I like you and hopefully we'll end up naked later on"

Ok well you get the point

You just skim a flurry of topics relevant to entering veterinary school i.e.

"Well, I joined the military for a few years so I learned tremendous self discipline from that, I got to work in research for curing cancer - I've had a interest in cancer since my first dog died from bone cancer, I have a special interest in working with cloning since I was a caretaker for the first cloned sheep, Dolly, and got to really sink my teeth in animal husbandry during that time, I love doing yoga to help with stress, and I'm fluent in French."

Just stuff like that, really. Highlights to make yourself appear interesting and start a conversation.
Don't bring up stuff you don't want to talk about. Give dates of when things happened when you want to show off (I did cancer research for TEN years), and just leave the dates out if it was only for a short time/doesn't accentuate the story. Don't do the strict timeline story: "Well, when I was 19 I did this, then at 20 I did that, then at 21 I did this"...it gets annoying to listen to.

 

[spikey]

this is the exact same question i'm struggling with. i don't want to go back too far, but i don't want to leave stuff out, and i don't want to babble...

too late

thanks for the advice, InfiniVet.

 

[kate_g]

this is the exact same question i'm struggling with. i don't want to go back too far, but i don't want to leave stuff out, and i don't want to babble...

One other thought... When you think about this quesiton, think about yourself as a product and your answer as a 30-second commercial. The point is to project your identity and create "brand recognition" in a very short period of time. What's your brand? How do you want them to see you? A scientist? A surgeon? A cowboy? Concentrate on telling them things that will start them off thinking of you that way, because that will provide direction for the rest of your interview. Don't start all the way at the beginning just because it's the beginning - you never know, they may cut you off to ask a question 10 seconds in to your response. So say the most important thing first and work in your other points from there.

 

[Pennymare]

Hi!
They tell you that they want to know about you during the interview...but I've also read in several websites that they don't really want to know about your personal life...But I don't know if vet school is different...
What do you guys think?

This isn't necesssarily an answer to the interview question, but I do think they want to know about your personal life to get a better idea of your personality and how you handle stress and heavy workloads.

My interviewers at Ohio asked me about stress management, my family, and personal challenges I've overcome. I think the important thing is to beware of 'whining', sounding trivial, rambling, or choosing weak examples when talking about these topics. Try to be positive. An interviewer may challenge what you say to see how you handle yourself; it doesn't necessarily mean you talked about the wrong thing.

Try to direct attention to interesting topics that you are strong in too.

 

[mistifical]

I, too, wasn't really sure what to do with this question. I knew that the interview would be very brief (15 min) and that they would want to get a lot out of me in such a short period of time. When I sat down, this was the first question that the "cold team" asked me. I just smiled and said something along the lines of, "well, there is a lot I could say, so where would you like me to begin?" She suggested my interest in vet. med... and said reinforced that it was a short interview so I had 1-2 min. to give my story! So I started with 5 years ago and how I found myself to be interested in the field... I feel that it went well.

Anyways, I don't think it can hurt to ask what they want to know. It's such a vague question and they don't have much time to get to know you and they're being tricky by asking you a question that without any direction you could write a book about! Different adcoms may expect different answers from this question, and maybe just even want to know how you react when asked such a vague question. I'm completely satisfied with the way I dealt with the question and I feel that they were too.

 

[Ladydvm]

Hm, yes... I remember struggling with this question before my interview. I believe I started with when my interest in vet med began, then expanded (briefly) on two experiences I had that increased my interest/taught valuable skills, then a bit on what I was doing that year in working toward my goal (getting accepted to vet school). From what I've heard, if you're going to talk about your life, best to do it in some sort of order... and really, I've found that if interviewers want to know more about your background than that, they'll ask you. This question is important- so I would think about it before hand- but don't rehearse your answer.