How to Maximize on Interviews and Open House invites?

[KevinJHa]

Hi folks,

Does anyone have any good tips or advice for how to make the most out of an open house weekend and potential interviews with faculty and grad students?

I currently have different files on the faculty im supposed to meet, with their main research, publications, and interests. I plan on famiarlizing myself with all of them and preparing some questions. 

Any help or advice would be much appreciated! Im currently heading up to boston for northeastern's open house.

[socstudentzzz]

Fortunately, all the open houses/recruitment weekends I've been invited to are with programs I've already been accepted to, so my visits won't have my possible acceptance looming over them. That being said, I think my approach will be oriented around getting a feel for the culture of the department, university, and city I'll be visiting. I already did extensive research when I applied, so I have familiarity on the academic orientation of the program and key faculty members, anymore would probably just psych me out and distract from other important considerations for me. I personally won't be spending too much time reading every faculty members' work, but I do think it's important that I have a thorough understanding of how my interests relate to those faculty (and grad students) that I will be "interviewing" with. I want these interactions with faculty and grad students to be more conversational and relaxed, that way I can get a better feeling for the ways our personalities interact. The last thing I want is to work with a group of people I fundamentally don't mesh with. I also think I'll find the perspectives and opinions of current grad students (especially those on the job market) to be incredibly useful in making my decisions as they've been through the program and I think they would be a little more honest and reflexive than faculty or newer students. 

Something that I plan on doing, if time allows, is just walking around the campus and the surrounding area by myself to see what kind of vibe I get. Idk why, I just feel it would help me visualize the possibility of me living in that area for the next 4-6 years. In addition, I will be spending a lot of time talking to grad students about the resources available to student on and off campus. My current university provides a variety of different resources that have made my master's program incredibly enjoyable. Things like a writing center, workshop series on professional development, a grad student union, etc. While student placement and rank will play a role in my decision, I want my time working toward that degree to be somewhat enjoyable...or at least not overtly terrible.  

Something I didn't really think about at first is figure out what things make me unique or interesting outside of school. You can only spend so much time talking about academia and research, so I want to make sure I have a few backup topics I can discuss. 

Ultimately, I view these visits as opportunities for each department to sell themselves to me. They're the ones recruiting me, and they have to convince me to spend the next few years of my life with them.

Just my two-cents (:

[EmC96]

One thing I've found extremely helpful to ask during interviews, and that I definitely plan to ask as many people as I can during my upcoming visit, is "what do you wish you had done in advance of starting the program?". I think it gives a really good insight for what daily life in the program feels like, it gets grad students and professors mentally picturing you in the program, and you get great advice out of it! (So far all of my answers have been "learn to code/get better at coding", which is more or less what I expected since I'm computational sociology, but that is almost always followed up with ideas on how to do that more effectively, with links to online resources and such).

[infovore]

A closely related question would be: what is the best way to approach attending the open house of the only program you got accepted to? (Considering that it's looking very likely I'll only have gotten accepted into one program.)

[EmC96]

11 minutes ago, infovore said:

A closely related question would be: what is the best way to approach attending the open house of the only program you got accepted to? (Considering that it's looking very likely I'll only have gotten accepted into one program.)

Do you mean how to approach RSVPing/logistics, or how to approach an open house where regardless of what people say, you'll be attending?

[KevinJHa]

1 hour ago, soc4315 said:

Fortunately, all the open houses/recruitment weekends I've been invited to are with programs I've already been accepted to, so my visits won't have my possible acceptance looming over them. That being said, I think my approach will be oriented around getting a feel for the culture of the department, university, and city I'll be visiting. I already did extensive research when I applied, so I have familiarity on the academic orientation of the program and key faculty members, anymore would probably just psych me out and distract from other important considerations for me. I personally won't be spending too much time reading every faculty members' work, but I do think it's important that I have a thorough understanding of how my interests relate to those faculty (and grad students) that I will be "interviewing" with. I want these interactions with faculty and grad students to be more conversational and relaxed, that way I can get a better feeling for the ways our personalities interact. The last thing I want is to work with a group of people I fundamentally don't mesh with. I also think I'll find the perspectives and opinions of current grad students (especially those on the job market) to be incredibly useful in making my decisions as they've been through the program and I think they would be a little more honest and reflexive than faculty or newer students. 

Something that I plan on doing, if time allows, is just walking around the campus and the surrounding area by myself to see what kind of vibe I get. Idk why, I just feel it would help me visualize the possibility of me living in that area for the next 4-6 years. In addition, I will be spending a lot of time talking to grad students about the resources available to student on and off campus. My current university provides a variety of different resources that have made my master's program incredibly enjoyable. Things like a writing center, workshop series on professional development, a grad student union, etc. While student placement and rank will play a role in my decision, I want my time working toward that degree to be somewhat enjoyable...or at least not overtly terrible.  

Something I didn't really think about at first is figure out what things make me unique or interesting outside of school. You can only spend so much time talking about academia and research, so I want to make sure I have a few backup topics I can discuss. 

Ultimately, I view these visits as opportunities for each department to sell themselves to me. They're the ones recruiting me, and they have to convince me to spend the next few years of my life with them.

Just my two-cents (:

Hey I really appreciate the thoughtful response. You're absolutely right, although I haven't been accepted yet I think I should focus on the atmosphere and culture of the department as well as the surrounding city -- considering i'd be spending the next 6 years there. I have already done research on faculty and such while I was initially applying and I think at this point I need to focus on how this department can benefit me as a student and how it could bolster my research. 

I love that idea of seeing this visit as an opportunity for the department to sell themselves to me. Thanks again!

[KevinJHa]

55 minutes ago, EmC96 said:

One thing I've found extremely helpful to ask during interviews, and that I definitely plan to ask as many people as I can during my upcoming visit, is "what do you wish you had done in advance of starting the program?". I think it gives a really good insight for what daily life in the program feels like, it gets grad students and professors mentally picturing you in the program, and you get great advice out of it! (So far all of my answers have been "learn to code/get better at coding", which is more or less what I expected since I'm computational sociology, but that is almost always followed up with ideas on how to do that more effectively, with links to online resources and such).

Thank you, that is definitely a question I will be asking some of the graduate students!

[infovore]

9 hours ago, EmC96 said:

Do you mean how to approach RSVPing/logistics, or how to approach an open house where regardless of what people say, you'll be attending?

The latter.