Why shouldn't it be vague?
After all an undergrad doing research for the first time shouldn't be expected to function like a grad student or a doctoral candidate.
I wouldn't want to work in your lab, no offense.
I would prefer to work with someone who is more of a dreamer and more creative.
People who are realistic in my opinion won't achieve excellence in research. It is people who dream big and aim for the unachievable who we credit as the greatest scientist.
Answers to anything during an interview shouldn't be vague. It should tell the interviewer something about yourself and shouldn't sound generic. The more information you present to the interviewer, the better your odds are of getting him/her to like you. As long as that information doesn't involve criminal convictions. This applies during volunteer interviews, job interviews, and med school interviews. Vague answers get you rejected.
Specifically, in terms of research as you mention, undergrads aren't expected to function like a graduate student. But I expect them to articulate their interest in research fluently and realistically. The people who go into research wanting to "change the world" will not only become disillusioned very quickly, but they will burn out because they're not being realistic. You're joining a lab in a field you don't know all that much about. You have no idea how to do the majority of the techniques in that lab and you want to tackle the big questions? Here's a big question: cure cancer. How are you going to do it? You're going directly from point A to point Z without any stops in between and that's not realistic at all.
Here's how we train undergrads. You get a grad student or post-doc mentor, who teaches you the basics of research and the scientific method. Usually, I start them out with critical papers in the field to read. As they read them, I assign them to one of the projects I'm working on. At this point, their role is only to learn the procedures and protocols. You're no use to anyone if you break the million-dollar high-res mass spec machine. I also ask them to read up on the theory behind the machines/techniques they are using. Anybody can do an extraction if I ask them to. It's more difficult to train someone to know
when to do an extraction in a work-up without being told. We build up to the point where I can hand them a flask and say "isolate this compound" and they can do all the in-between steps. But initially, they have to do all those steps and learn them well. After they are well-versed in lab techniques and the influential papers in the field, this is the point where I ask them what kind of projects they want to pursue. This is typically 3-4 months into them being at the lab. Usually, this project will make a small advance in the field. It's rare for undergrads to come up with good proposals that are
Nature-quality material. In some bright ones, the ideas are there but the execution isn't. It's nice to want to cure cancer. It's much harder to figure out a path through.
Because of this whole long process, I only accept pre-meds who understand what research is and not those who want to jump right into the big questions without any experience whatsoever. The ones who understand that they have to learn to walk before they can run are the ones who excel. For grad students, that walking takes a couple years. Good grad students can effectively tackle
parts of some big questions by their second or third years. What makes you think an undergrad can walk in there with no experience and save the world? It's unrealistic and unrealistic to think about.
The people who dream big before they're dry behind the ears are the ones who wash out of grad school. That's five years of experience talking.
