A few weeks back I did an information session with a prospective MD-PhD student in my department. It wasn't an interview, and the session was purely provided so that he could meet current students in his prospective department and ask us questions.
Long story short, it was fine. My department provided doughnuts (woo!), and it only took up about 30 minutes of my time.
But you know? I thought the kid was kind of a douche. First of all, he approached the sessions like he was just interested in selling himself. Every phrase he uttered seemed like it was designed to convey, "I am awesome," to us. Which, I mean, ok it's an interview. But it was so fake! It came across more as, "I am smarter than everyone including you," than as, "I have so much to offer this place, including you." Plus, it's pretty irritating to have a conversation with someone that consists of them essentially repeating to you how smart they think they are.
Second he had a list of questions that were germane to basically nothing about how the department actually operated, and served to primarily allow us to talk about how great [my school] is. A bunch of softballs. As a result, he got no useful information whatsoever. We never got to tell him about the coursework, or the mentorship, or the funding, how medical school was integrated with the PhD work, the fact that he'd have to write a grant to pay for himself if he came here, or what it was like to be a student in this department at all.
Finally, and possibly most annoying of all, every time I (or any other woman he was speaking to) opened her mouth, he would interrupt after we'd been talking for, oh.... about 5 seconds. Before it was even possible to answer his question or to provide any nuance. I thought it was just me, but then I saw him do this to another woman 5-6 times in a 3 minute conversation. After he did this to me a couple of times, I stopped caring whether I ended up giving him useful information, and started counting down the minutes to when the session would be over. And I'm sorry, if you do this to people, it conveys -- whether you mean it or not -- that you don't actually value the information you're being given, or the person who is providing that information to you.
Ah well, as I said it wasn't an interview, so my opinion does not matter at all to the admissions process. But I guess for those of you who are interviewing for anything in the future, make sure you listen as well as you talk about yourself. Being smart isn't enough. You have to be able to show people that you can play well with others, and that you don't think the world revolves around you. And especially, nobody likes an egotistical med student.
7 Pearls of Wisdom:
Good advice to keep in mind as I start residency interviews. It's amazing how many of us can fall into that trap without even realizing it. Thanks!
Just don't cut people off right after they start talking, and you should be ok.
Good luck!
Wow, I don't feel too bad about not having gone...
He sounds like 100% douche. I hatehatehate it when people (male AND female) show patterns of interrupting/ignoring/dismissing only women.
Although I haven't done any research into MD-PhDs and therefore have no idea of how much/little one should know about issues on funding, the first thing I would have asked is 'How do I do this without having to live in my suitcase?'
At least you got free donuts out of it.
The disrespect toward females really pisses me off. A while back, I was part of a team giving interviews to prospective employees and one gentleman stood out in a negative way. Every time I would ask a question, he'd look at the guys with me while answering. Yet, he'd look at the guys themselves while answering their questions. It was subtle and only one of the other guys had picked up on it when we talked afterwards about the applicant.
While he was technically proficient, we turned him down because of that.
Nancy -- That sounds really annoying. I think the most frustrating part of this behavior is that most times the other people present won't even pick up on it unless it happens to them as well. So then if you say anything, you run the risk of being labeled the "hyper-sensitive feminazi" or some other unappealing moniker. In a way, I find it encouraging that your male colleague noticed that the interview candidate was doing this also.
Mingle -- I didn't know to ask about funding either. Now that I've gone through the process, if I were to be interviewed by a current student, I'd ask what kinds of things created the greatest amount of frustration for them, and what did the department do especially well of making easy for students. I might also ask how many students the department had, who they were, what kinds of projects they were working on, whether students hung out together in the department, or if people were more solitary. How was the mentorship. Was there too much or too little hand holding. What was the coursework like. Was there too much/too little/just the right amount. Could you take classes outside the department, how did that work. Did I have time for fun. What kinds of activities did I do, and how easy/difficult was it to get involved with my interests in this community. Things like that.
Maybe some of these things would be seen as prying by some interviewers.... probably you'd want to ask faculty members different kinds of questions. But if a candidate asked me these kinds of questions I would think instantly that they had a good sense of what was important. Remember, you're there to find out if the program is a good fit for you as much as you're there to sell yourself.
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