Follow up on interviews

[PokePsych]

So I'm sorta having an internal debate about whether I should keep contacting my POI. I've had an interview with him (was a bit all over the place, but OK). Then followed up with a nice RQ and he sent me some papers. Now in my country it is kinda considered 'rude' and 'bad judgment' to keep contacting profs because well... they're busy. However, I met with one of my American friends and he was like gurlllll you should be a lot more aggressive - get back on something you read in the papers. So not sure what to do - do I follow up with some new ideas (although I'd have to develop something nice).

Any other opinions on this?

[TakeruK]

Profs are busy but that is no reason to not contact them. In North America, I would say that understanding that profs are busy and being respectful of their time means that you contact them for legitimate reasons and you wait patiently for a response, rather than to assume they would be too busy and not email them at all! So if you have something to say, then send them an email!! Don't write back just for the sake of writing back but if you do have questions from the papers they sent you, you should definitely write back. Let them decide whether they want to respond to you again or not. It would only be "rude" and "bad judgement" if you wrote a response, then continued writing them over and over again before they replied to you. Some other rude behaviours might be to expect responses within a few days and to continually ask them about a response! But if you send a message and are willing to wait until they have time to respond, that's perfectly fine

[PokePsych]

5 hours ago, TakeruK said:

Profs are busy but that is no reason to not contact them. In North America, I would say that understanding that profs are busy and being respectful of their time means that you contact them for legitimate reasons and you wait patiently for a response, rather than to assume they would be too busy and not email them at all! So if you have something to say, then send them an email!! Don't write back just for the sake of writing back but if you do have questions from the papers they sent you, you should definitely write back. Let them decide whether they want to respond to you again or not. It would only be "rude" and "bad judgement" if you wrote a response, then continued writing them over and over again before they replied to you. Some other rude behaviours might be to expect responses within a few days and to continually ask them about a response! But if you send a message and are willing to wait until they have time to respond, that's perfectly fine

Awesome - I did have some things/ideas to follow up on that may interest him (although it would be mainly follow up questions - potential research ideas/topics). After all, I don't want to go of the radar.