Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Elaboration on my previous post. Very long! So, I drove down by myself during the day on Friday. After parking in the garage, I stepped out onto the street and there was a bum there right away. Also, looking around on that street, it looked nothing like a college campus and everything like an unfamiliar city. So at first I was a little discouraged, like maybe I'd made a completely wrong choice of school.
I arrived earlier than the hotel check-in time, so I left my stuff in the car and walked around. The main quad was very pretty, with lots of nice architecture, but it was cold outside and I was alone and tired from the drive. I checked in to the hotel and hung out there until it was time to meet for the informal dinner. Met up with the group in the lobby, then we walked over together. We went to a tavern/pub sort of place, and although they put us in the basement dining area, the tables near us were very rowdy so it was hard to hear most conversations. Despite the adversity, however, I ended up talking a fair amount with both a couple current students and several other prospectives. Usually small talk with people I don't know is difficult for me, but since I already had so much in common with them, it wasn't too hard. After dinner I went home, called Ryan, and then my roommate arrived (later flight). We chit-chatted then went to sleep not long thereafter. Oh yeah, they put us up in the Sheraton, which was super-nice for a grad student type. Comfy comfy bed! And I was also surprised that the department paid for our dinner, despite it being an "informal, optional" event, which I interpreted as "pay your own way." But no!
In the morning we met in the lobby and walked to the bio building together, where they had breakfast for us. I talked with a current student of the advisor I want. I would potentially be doing intertidal ecology in Maine, which he also does, so it was good to hear about the logistics of school in one place and field work in another. Then the department heads gave a welcome/introduction, then we watched a faculty research talk, which just happened to be by the guy I want to work with- how convenient :) After all that were the interviews.
In all, I was really surprised that only one person (the grad student I interviewed with) wanted to know more about my past experience. The view was that if you make it to the interview step, they already know you're qualified and they're just trying to get a feel for how you would fit in the department, and also they want elaboration on what you want to do research on. Anyhow, my first interview was with my potential advisor. We got along great and he was very easy to talk to. It was definitely a laid-back conversation deal rather than interview questioning. The second was with the current student that I'd already chatted with at dinner the night before. She wanted to hear about my fish project, so I explained it. No problems there.
My third interview was interesting. The guy does work very different from the type of stuff I want to do, and it seemed like he had little interest in talking with me. The first 10 minutes were quite tense for me- he wasn't asking difficult questions or anything, but just the projected annoyance on his part. He discovered that I dive, however, and he warmed up to me a little after that because it's his favorite hobby. Yay diving. Interviews 4 and 5 were with also with professors who have dissimilar interests than me, but they were friendly and mainly wanted to know what I want to do and why. #6 was a friendly guy but asked some very tough questions, practically forcing me to design my thesis experiment during the course of the conversation. I talked to some other interviewees afterward and they were also caught off guard by him.
Then was a 1.5 hour lunch. I ate and chatted with some other prospectives, then went into the hallway to get more soda, where I ran into my potential advisor. We chatted for another 20 minutes, mainly him convincing me why I should go to Penn over St0ny Brook. He also told me, "You'll get in to everywhere you applied to." I also learned that one of his undergrads applied to SB and was invited to the weekend retreat, but for her it's also an interview weekend. So I must have been in their "must-have" category. Go me. Anyway, that conversation leads me to be 99% sure that I'll get in, despite the fact that they interviewed 11 people for 5 spots.
Then there was a Q&A session with current students. We mostly heard about the workload, living in Philly, money issues, and relations between the students and department/university. I've got to say, the money situation at Penn is excellent. In fact, I'd be getting paid more to TA one class per semester than I'm making at my current job! (Only by a couple hundred dollars, and it's more expensive to live down there, but still! I even get summers off teaching!) Then we had a little campus tour, where I saw that there were other scenic places on campus beyond just the main quad.
Then we drove over to a prof's house for dinner. There was beer, wine (I had Shiraz), and catered food. Yum! I talked even more with my potential advisor (he makes his own wine!), as well as with random other people there. It was a very early dinner due to the impending blizzard, but I was still exhausted afterward. Once we got back to the hotel I called Ryan, then met up with 4 other prospectives and we went to a coffee shop to play cards (not poker, other stuff). Eventually we switched locations back to a hotel room and stayed up watching the Olympics and playing cards/other games until 2am. It was good to hang out with people close to my age other than Ryan.
Overnight the campus got about a foot of snow. Everyone thought I was a little crazy, but I decided to leave by car anyway (they all flew in, but all Philly flights were cancelled). I gave a ride to a guy from RIT whose flight was cancelled (he had someone pick him up in Syracuse) and we talked the whole time about bio research and miscellaneous tangents. After getting a little north of Philly the roads cleared up fast and in all, the return trip only took a half hour more than the drive down. I was exhausted that night, so Ryan and I pretty much went out to dinner and went to bed early.
Yesterday it was right back into the daily grind- field station then RL. RL was fairly busy because it seemed like some people celebrated Valentines a day early. I also have to work tonight, and it should be a zoo. I am quite tired. Yawn.
I arrived earlier than the hotel check-in time, so I left my stuff in the car and walked around. The main quad was very pretty, with lots of nice architecture, but it was cold outside and I was alone and tired from the drive. I checked in to the hotel and hung out there until it was time to meet for the informal dinner. Met up with the group in the lobby, then we walked over together. We went to a tavern/pub sort of place, and although they put us in the basement dining area, the tables near us were very rowdy so it was hard to hear most conversations. Despite the adversity, however, I ended up talking a fair amount with both a couple current students and several other prospectives. Usually small talk with people I don't know is difficult for me, but since I already had so much in common with them, it wasn't too hard. After dinner I went home, called Ryan, and then my roommate arrived (later flight). We chit-chatted then went to sleep not long thereafter. Oh yeah, they put us up in the Sheraton, which was super-nice for a grad student type. Comfy comfy bed! And I was also surprised that the department paid for our dinner, despite it being an "informal, optional" event, which I interpreted as "pay your own way." But no!
In the morning we met in the lobby and walked to the bio building together, where they had breakfast for us. I talked with a current student of the advisor I want. I would potentially be doing intertidal ecology in Maine, which he also does, so it was good to hear about the logistics of school in one place and field work in another. Then the department heads gave a welcome/introduction, then we watched a faculty research talk, which just happened to be by the guy I want to work with- how convenient :) After all that were the interviews.
In all, I was really surprised that only one person (the grad student I interviewed with) wanted to know more about my past experience. The view was that if you make it to the interview step, they already know you're qualified and they're just trying to get a feel for how you would fit in the department, and also they want elaboration on what you want to do research on. Anyhow, my first interview was with my potential advisor. We got along great and he was very easy to talk to. It was definitely a laid-back conversation deal rather than interview questioning. The second was with the current student that I'd already chatted with at dinner the night before. She wanted to hear about my fish project, so I explained it. No problems there.
My third interview was interesting. The guy does work very different from the type of stuff I want to do, and it seemed like he had little interest in talking with me. The first 10 minutes were quite tense for me- he wasn't asking difficult questions or anything, but just the projected annoyance on his part. He discovered that I dive, however, and he warmed up to me a little after that because it's his favorite hobby. Yay diving. Interviews 4 and 5 were with also with professors who have dissimilar interests than me, but they were friendly and mainly wanted to know what I want to do and why. #6 was a friendly guy but asked some very tough questions, practically forcing me to design my thesis experiment during the course of the conversation. I talked to some other interviewees afterward and they were also caught off guard by him.
Then was a 1.5 hour lunch. I ate and chatted with some other prospectives, then went into the hallway to get more soda, where I ran into my potential advisor. We chatted for another 20 minutes, mainly him convincing me why I should go to Penn over St0ny Brook. He also told me, "You'll get in to everywhere you applied to." I also learned that one of his undergrads applied to SB and was invited to the weekend retreat, but for her it's also an interview weekend. So I must have been in their "must-have" category. Go me. Anyway, that conversation leads me to be 99% sure that I'll get in, despite the fact that they interviewed 11 people for 5 spots.
Then there was a Q&A session with current students. We mostly heard about the workload, living in Philly, money issues, and relations between the students and department/university. I've got to say, the money situation at Penn is excellent. In fact, I'd be getting paid more to TA one class per semester than I'm making at my current job! (Only by a couple hundred dollars, and it's more expensive to live down there, but still! I even get summers off teaching!) Then we had a little campus tour, where I saw that there were other scenic places on campus beyond just the main quad.
Then we drove over to a prof's house for dinner. There was beer, wine (I had Shiraz), and catered food. Yum! I talked even more with my potential advisor (he makes his own wine!), as well as with random other people there. It was a very early dinner due to the impending blizzard, but I was still exhausted afterward. Once we got back to the hotel I called Ryan, then met up with 4 other prospectives and we went to a coffee shop to play cards (not poker, other stuff). Eventually we switched locations back to a hotel room and stayed up watching the Olympics and playing cards/other games until 2am. It was good to hang out with people close to my age other than Ryan.
Overnight the campus got about a foot of snow. Everyone thought I was a little crazy, but I decided to leave by car anyway (they all flew in, but all Philly flights were cancelled). I gave a ride to a guy from RIT whose flight was cancelled (he had someone pick him up in Syracuse) and we talked the whole time about bio research and miscellaneous tangents. After getting a little north of Philly the roads cleared up fast and in all, the return trip only took a half hour more than the drive down. I was exhausted that night, so Ryan and I pretty much went out to dinner and went to bed early.
Yesterday it was right back into the daily grind- field station then RL. RL was fairly busy because it seemed like some people celebrated Valentines a day early. I also have to work tonight, and it should be a zoo. I am quite tired. Yawn.
