In preparing for your interview, you should now have a solid understanding of what you want to research. This is important to keep in mind as you begin interviews with faculty members - both on campus and over the phone. Having an idea of what you want to research helps both you and your potential mentor in navigating the admissions process.
Special thanks to Matteo Mereu, previous Gateways to Graduate School mentee and current graduate student for sharing his experience.
You can find Matteo on LinkedIn
Experience matters. If you tell a professor you’d like to research data-driven energy systems, showing you’ve done work on such topics before is a major boost.
Matteo's story: Data-driven energy systems is a broad, yet niche, term in energy research. Showing my now major professor my previous research work in data-driven energy systems helped clarify what type of work I wanted to do, for both of us.
Don’t be afraid to share unfamiliar topics. Especially if it is significant or up-and-coming in your field, grad school is where you can still learn and develop experiences in new areas. That said, showing professors your initiative and means to study new topics (instead of them providing resources to you) shows motivation that professors desire.
Matteo's story: Lifecycle assessment is an important topic in environmental energy systems that in my undergraduate institution I was not able to explore. By showing my professor that I branched out through internships, reviewed LCA research, and singled out my now graduate intuition’s LCA courses as areas of importance, we were on the same page I could pick up this topic along the way.
Draw a healthy line on hyper fixations and your research interest. What you are interested in doing can change over time, that happens to everyone. But if you just got really invested in a topic a month ago, maybe think bigger-picture before possibly devoting your entire grad school experience to that topic.
Matteo's story: Just over a month before my interview with my current major professor, I passed the Introductory Sommelier Course and Examination through the Court of Master Sommeliers of America. Later, as I was discussing with my now major professor the possibility of researching vinification waste-to-energy systems, I stepped back and thought to myself, is wine something I really want to invest myself in more? Having grown up Italian with family ties to a vineyard, I felt I could justify the decision more.
Have a plan. For each research topic you bring up, what will you follow up with so it does not come off as an empty thought?
Find connections to the professor’s research/interests. The professor you are talking with is likely not going to have one-for-one matching interests to yours, and that’s ok! But showing that your different ideas connect to their current work shows you see yourself actually working with them.
Find resources (maybe your professor has never heard of them!). If you want to research how waste systems can benefit farm operational viability, look in advance for grants, fellowships, etc. for professor(s) to explore that can help you research what you want to research.
As discussed in the Research Statement section, projects could very well be designed by you. New (typically assistant) professors, if you are being interviewed by them, are likely just starting to establish their lab as you are establishing your research interests. That said, being open about projects that you have in mind can further help you communicate your research interests. It shows initiative and having a grant or two in mind to display how such projects are feasible is even better.