8. Interviews with Potential Supervisors
After 1st contact by emails, some
supervisors prefer to have an interview/meeting to get to know about yourself.
I have experience in interviews with 7 professors (2 from Canada, 2 from New
Zealand, 1 from Australia and 2 from Singapore).
Among them, only 1 supervisor
told me to give a presentation related to one of his research papers. I was
given a few days for the preparation and told me to do a presentation of one of
his research paper I preferred. It was about 10-15 minutes of oral presentation
and then he asked only a few questions with regards to the presentation. After
that, he asked a few questions about myself, my research experience and my
working experience in my lecturing position. However, only a few questions were
asked and the interview was mainly based on the presentation.
With the other professors, I
only had Q/A session type interviews. They were basically about 10-40 minutes
long. Questions were related to my educational qualifications, research
experiences, interest to work with him/ her, the reason for selection of a
particular country/ university, future goals, strengths and weaknesses, some
specific questions to check my attitudes, some basic technical questions,
etc.
List of some questions asked from
me;
- Brief introduction of myself
- Explain about my research experience and one of the research project
- Explain about my research publications
- Explain about teaching experience from working as a lecturer
- What are the subjects I contributed as a lecturer?
- Why did I select the particular country for my postgraduate studies?
- Why did I select the particular universities for my postgraduate studies?
- Why do I have an interest to work under the respective supervisor?
- What are my future goals and why do I need to do an MSc/PhD?
- What are my strengths and weaknesses?
- How do my friends/ society see as myself?
- What is the reason behind the selection of a particular research area?
- What is your most desired subarea which is parallel with my research work (some specific area under the main research area)?
- What are my achievements in academic field?
- How will I face the situation of not able to see my parents during postgraduate studies?
- How will I survive from some situations of not getting vacations and staying at the research lab during postgraduate studies?
- How will I spend wisely the financial assistance given by the supervisor?
- Why I cannot do my postgraduate studies in my mother country?
- Few technical questions which are not hard; Can you explain the difference between the independent variable and dependent variable? What are the categories of carbohydrates?
- Do you need to ask any questions from me (from supervisor)?
For the questions, I always provided answers with explanations and accurate information. Giving just a simple and answer with lack of details may not highlight that you are a good candidate for him/her. So, it is recommended to give clear but also a complete answer to the supervisor’s questions. I got positive results from 5 professors and they mentioned that they were impressed with my answers/presentation. I think the most important thing is to give a good impression and talk confidently and friendly. All the supervisors I had interviews with were super friendly and I did not feel any discomfort to talk with them. Therefore, they were not stressful situations but very calm circumstances. An interview is certainly a kind of screening test before the supervisor is agreeing to take you as one of his research students. If you are really passionate and committed to doing postgraduate studies and you can communicate about it to the supervisor properly, then I think selecting from such an interview may be really successful.
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