tissue engineer 2012 Posted November 20, 2011 Share Posted November 20, 2011 (edited) I emailed a professor to show interest in working her lab, and she emailed me back telling me about where her research is going in the next few years and to ask what I am interested in. She mentioned a family of disorders, and I was wondering if it would be appropriate to tell her that I am very motivated to work in that field because my dad has one of those disorders. Would that be oversharing, or would it be...I don't know...humanizing? Make me more of a real person? Or would it be bad to show that I have some sort of personal motivation to finding "the cure" because it is so closely linked to me emotionally? Thanks for any responses, I just keep bouncing back and forth on this... edit: or maybe I could just keep it vague and alude to it? Like..."I would be very interested in working with you on disease X because I have some family history with a disease in that group." Would that work? Edited November 20, 2011 by tissue engineer 2012 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elem3nt Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 No, this is second only to "I got a chemistry set when I was 5 and wanted to be a scientist ever since." Just say "I am very interested in working on the [biochemistry/molecular biology] of [x disease] and your research is exactly what I want to do." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktel Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 On another thread, which I can't find right now, someone mentioned this. Apparently this sort of reasoning can sometimes cause the department to regard the student as a flight risk. If the only motivation to research something is to find the cure for a family member, the individual might quickly lose motivation when they see that is indeed not possible or if their research changes direction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gradschoolguru Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 I agree with those who commented above. Keep your personal motivations out of discussions with a potential advisor. He/She will be more interested in your scientific ideas and your previous research in the area. These are the qualifications (not family circumstances) that will get you in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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