Meeting with professors...any advice please??

[coinsky]

Dear All,

I would be very grateful for any advice as you all seem wayyy more knowledgeable than me!

I am a UK student applying to study a masters in Wildlife Biology at the University in Fairbanks. I have a GPA of about 3.5 - 3.7 (apparently the conversion is kind of tricky from UK to US.?) and I will be taking the GRE in a couple of weeks.

Anyway, I contacted several professors whose research areas I am interested in and I am flying to Alaska tomorrow to meet with 4 of them over the course of next week. I am very nervous about this as I am crap at selling myself.

Two of the things that are mainly worrying me are that I received my bachelor degree (in natural sciences) by distance learning, therefore I don't have any professors to write me a LOR..

And..the main thing is that I don't have any research experience, I did mention this loosely in my emails to the professors and they still said they would be happy to meet me but it seems that talking about previous research experience is what is most recommended in meetings. So am I going to sound totally stupid?

Thanks for any advice anyone might have..

Fiona

[studyordie]

I'm in a very unrelated field but if I were you I would study up on the research interests of the faculty you're meeting and then in the meetings have something to say about how those interests correlate to the research your coursework has led you to become interested in (even though you haven't gotten started on that research yet).

[dragynally]

Be honest and open about your desire to learn. Ask lots of questions. Good luck

[coinsky]

Thanks guys!

I have read some of the professors publications (the ones I could get access to) so I can hopefully talk about them..