In preparation for interviews, I'm trying to map out roughly what I want to say for a few of the common interview questions. Any feedback/suggestions would be much appreciated! Feel free to share your answers as well.
**Introduce yourself/tell me a bit about yourself.**
Currently I'm a postbac research fellow at the NIH. I earned my B.S. from [University] double majoring in Neuroscience and Molecular Genetics. I'm. interested in basic and translational research related to neurodegenerative diseases.
**Tell me about your previous research experience.**
My Honors Thesis project was a genome-wide association study of axon guidance using a fruit fly model. I screened several hundred fly strains and identified any with naturally-occurring defects in axon guidance. Then I used their sequenced genomes to find variants in 16 genes that were associated with these defects. During the later part of my undergrad, my interests began to shift from basic to biomedical research. I wanted to get some experience in biomedical research and see what it was really like. I took a short break from my thesis research to do a summer research internship in Switzerland, where I studied how seizures can alter blood-brain barrier function in Alzheimer's disease mice. I also approached a postdoc at [University] about writing a review together about Alzheimer's. We actually end up writing three reviews together, which focused on the roles that amyloid-beta plays in the innate immune system. The internship and papers really deepened my interest in biomedical research, especially related to neurodegenerative diseases.
After I graduated, I decided to further explore biomedical research by joining the NIH. My institute is called the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, which basically combines assay development and high-throughput screening to move discoveries from bench to bedside. My main project involves developing a new high-throughput assay to [redacted--not yet published\]. I programmed our robotic liquid handler to perform all the assay steps, and then analyzed the samples using mass spec. I'm also working on another project related to [disease\], where I'm using CRISPR to attach a nano-luciferase tag to the [redacted\] gene in some patient-derived cell lines. This will allow us to look for compounds that inhibit mutant [redacted\] levels.
*[Note: Should I say this in chronological order or reverse chronological? Is this too much info or not enough? Do I mention PI names?]*
**What are your research interests for graduate school?**
I'm interested in researching the molecular mechanisms for neurodegenerative diseases. Alzheimer's is the condition I'm the most experienced with, but I'm also open to exploring others like Huntington's or ALS. Ideally I would like to also be involved with translational research to bring some of these discoveries closer to the clinic.
**Why do you want to go to graduate school?**
My dream is to one day run my own lab and spend my career in scientific research. In order to achieve that level of scientific leadership, a PhD is the next logical step. I'm looking forward to becoming a more independent scientist and enhancing my research skills.
**Why do you want to join this program specifically?**
[Using one school as an example here.] I really like how strong this program is in translational neuroscience. There are a lot of resources here to help researchers translate their discoveries into possible treatments. I also like that it's an umbrella program so I'd have access to a wide variety of different labs and have more options for interdisciplinary research. The clinical certification program for grad students is also really cool and definitely something I would be interested in pursuing.
**What are your strengths and weaknesses?**
I have a good amount of experience with thinking independently and managing my own experiments. I was given a lot of autonomy in my thesis lab, and I had to do a lot of self-teaching and figuring out how to solve problems by myself. Currently at the NIH we function similarly to graduate students, as we're in charge of designing and running our own experiments as well as analyzing data. Another strength is that I know how to program in Python and R, and I'm learning Bash. I think this skill could be very useful in my future research. As far as a weakness, I sometimes can take criticism from my PI too personally. I've gotten better about this by communicating very clearly with my PI and also just getting more used to criticism, and it's something I'd like to continue improving during grad school.
Not a dumb question at all!
I contacted faculty before applying, if only to establish a connection in case I did get an interview. I chose the top people I was interested in and sent them an email explaining that I was applying and was interested in their work. I described some of my past experiences in the field, then I explained exactly what they did that was of interest to me and how it relates to my interests or past experiences (not in great detail or anything). The only questions I really asked were "Do you know if you'll be taking students next year?" and "Would you be able to speak over the phone sometime to further discuss my interests?" Bonus points if you have actual questions about their research, but they better be well-informed questions. I did have a few phone calls with faculty - I told them about my interests and why that program is exciting to me. They told me about their research, and even gave me some tips about the program that helped me bolster my SOP for that program.
This was all for neuroscience PhD programs.
Feel free to PM me and I can send you examples of my emails or answer more questions.
