<p>Just had my interview at a starbucks with a retired professor/dean. we had a lot in common (music, research, history, politics) so it was very nice. He insisted on paying for my drink…and i ordered the most expensive one… felt bad.</p>
<p>Why rice i think comes up in every interview. He found the teachers very approachable, and liked the smaller class size and the residential college system. He was also fond of the opportunities in the city. Learning to work independently helped him the most, oh and he enjoyed the mix of science and liberal arts education. </p>
<p>He told me at the beginning that rice doesn’t use the interview as an assessment of academic ability. Thoughts are all jumbled up in my brain right now so for my own benefit, here’s a list of the topics we talked about: symphony, boston, red sox, beethoven, why rice, Afghanistan, vietnam, merits/faults of the war, my predictions of the final outcome, kite runner, a thousand splendid suns, nytimes, nicholas kristof, what i would say in an essay to go on a trip with him (many seconds of umms), sex trade in cambodia, africa, ddt, malaria (he’s a science professor…so science questions), silent springs, debate (in which…i debated myself) um something something… research, biochemistry, yeast, why research, why science, favorite class, most challenging class, how science and arts are related, career, back to music, operas, musicals, sports-tennis, volunteer work/why, favorite author/why(Fitzgerald, i quoted him), nature of adults vs teenagers, foreign languages, things i do in my free time, biking trails… importance of physics. </p>
<p>Ah please excuse me, i’m done. This was my second interview. If the interview is held at a very relaxed setting like in a coffee shop, I think it’s a good idea to begin with some small talk. For me the topic was obama’s speech last night, which i streamed online and listened to while doing homework. remember that the interviewer wants to be your advocate!</p>
