I am meeting with a biology professor to discuss opportunities for an undergraduate research assistantship. I initiated the contact by introducing myself via email and expressing that I am interested in his research. He agreed to meet with me to discuss research opportunities, but I am wondering what is the expected length of a meeting like this? Also, are there any materials (e.g. printed copy of my CV) that I should bring? Should I come prepared with questions about his research (which would require hours and hours of critical reading, because while his work seems interesting to me, it’s also very difficult to fully understand) or simply honestly tell him that I’m not as knowledgeable about his work as I would like to be but it sounds very interesting to me and I want to be involved? Is casual clothing appropriate? What kind of questions should I ask? Lastly, what kind of questions would the professor ask and what would be an appropriate answer?
Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.
Hey, congrats on getting through the toughest steps which are sending the email and waiting for the professor’s response. If you have a CV, then do bring it. Dressing up well (casual business suggested) is nice too - I see both as giving impression of coming prepared.
Ideally most of the meeting would involve discussing about the research, so yes, spending some time to read closely about the research would be worth it. I would go bit further to come up why you’re interested and ask how can you get involved. You can also ask about who are the existing team members in the research, or what are the next steps or next goal that the research is pursuing.
You can also discuss about compensation (e.g. credits), but I personally would work ‘for free’ for a semester just to make sure if the research is interesting or not, and then discuss about getting 3~4 units, graded.
If you manage to get this research, good for you! You were able to go straight to the source - and if you know who you want to work with and what you want to work on, that’s probably the way to go. Not sure, however, how the credit thing works if you aren’t going through a program like URAP (check it out if you haven’t already). My D is in her 4th semester of URAP and it has been a great experience.
Just be careful that you don’t get sucked into providing a ton of free labor for “experience” without the appropriate amount of credits or some other form of compensation. D has a classmate that was doing 40 hours of unpaid/no credit research, to the detriment of her grades.
Whoa - 40 hours is a full time job. That’s pure exploitation, and somebody should report that, since I’m sure that there are more than a few regulations that are being violated there.
OP - While you will be tempted to talk a lot about how much everything interests you, and you should to a certain extent, the real secret is to encourage the professor to talk about their research. Have a list of things that they’re doing that you read up on and are interested in, and ask them about it, and then sit back and let them ramble on. An informed question here, a small comment to let them know that you’re listening and have an idea what they’re talking about, and look interested. Have a couple of questions in case the professor goes quiet, or asks you whether you have questions, but mostly get them to talk, and show yourself to be listening.
It also works during academic job interviews.
Sometimes they’ll hand you a recent article written by them, a student, or a colleague, and ask you to read it, and get back to them. This is a sign that the previous strategy won’t be enough. Read it, and be prepared to talk about it intelligently. In any case, be prepared to discuss the stuff that the professor does, and the general field, intelligently.
BTW, this may help you get the position, but once you start working in the lab, you’ll need to prove yourself. This is especially difficult if there are students who have been working there a while, and even more so if there are grad students.