Potential advisors seem to want me to know EXACTLY what I want to do...

[kraus434]

So I've just wrapped my last grad school visit.  I'm currently finishing up an undergraduate degree in plant breeding and plant genetics and am being heavily recruited by all the top programs in the country.  Woo! 

 

Throughout the interviewing process I've chatted with a few professors who seem to want me to know EXACTLY what research questions I am interested in asking.  The truth is I've had a ton of research opportunities throughout my undergrad (multiple projects within two plant breeding labs at my university, research internships at two seeds companies), and frankly I haven't done anything that I haven't enjoyed.  I know that in grad school I want to work on a project that involves statistical/quantitative genetics, retains a breeding focus, includes computational biology/bioinformatics aspects, etc.  But I've discovered that isn't cutting it for some.  A few profs I've talked with so far want to know exactly what "biological questions" I want to ask while working in their lab.

 

I'm still an undergrad, so naturally I'm not already an expert on the finer points of developing statistical models to predict genetic load of rare alleles or how to incorporate multidimensional data (ie. RNAseq, metabolite profiles) to dissect a metabolic pathway.  Is it reasonable for a professor to expect me to know exactly what kind of project I want to do that just so happens to fit neatly within the confines of their grants, or am I just way behind in my own soul searching process?  In my mind that seems like something that would be more often expected of someone coming in with a Masters degree already, but maybe I'm wrong.

 

Any advice or tips on how to answer those tough questions with prospective advisors would be much appreciate.

[fancyfeast]

I'm still an undergrad but I'm interested in hearing the answer to this too, as someone who will be applying next fall. You have a clearer idea than I do about research interests!

 

One thing that I can think of in your case though, is that maybe they wanted to see how your research interests fit into their projects? Because you can say that you want to computational biology, for example, but if there's 2 other labs in the department that do that why are you interested in that particular lab? 

[pears]

I applied to MA programs after spending a year & change working after finishing my undergrad track, & although I'm in a different field, I also ran into this issue. I knew what kind of work I was interested in, but I was vague on the specifics. Honestly, the thesis that I'm slowly ambling towards now is almost nothing like what I proposed in my SOPs & correspondences as examples of possible thesis topics, & it's nothing like what I had envisioned myself doing, but it's shaping up to be a really interesting data set that should offer me a tabula rasa of sorts for research questions. In my case, being honest about not being 100% on a specific topic, but speaking passionately about the general areas worked out just fine for me (you're in a different field, though, so YMMV); I think professors expect changes like that for some — many? — students, especially those fresh out of undergrad, at least in archaeology & anthropology.

[zipykido]

I think most are simply asking you to see if you're capable of proposing research based on experience. A lot of people need to be told what type of research to do, occasionally professors have projects in mind that they just need warm bodies to conduct. But in my opinion, great candidates and scientists should be able to read literature, formulate a hypothesis, and have a plan for executing that research. It seems like you're at point 3 right now, you just need to do the first two points and be able to relay that information.