Location: In a place where I will challenge challenges beyond my wildest dreams (UMich CS MSE '14, BSE '13)
Posts: 1,734
I wasn't myself entirely. I didn't feel comfortable sharing my inner thoughts with my interviewer. He kinda started the interview slow -- allowed me to pick wherever I wanted to start, but then he started peppering me with questions: So what do you do in school? Are in involved? Sports? etc. etc. He was very anal about me having any team-oriented or group-oriented activities, but our school is very "on your own," as it's pretty competitive. It's the kind of school where you go to school, go to orchestra or sports practice, volunteer, return home, do your homework, study, then collapse in bed late at night. Not much time on your own ... so I tripped when he asked me about what I do for fun ... told him about some TV shows I liked (we both liked the new show FRINGE so that was nice) but that was about it because I didn't feel in place at all.
On the other hand, he seemed impressed about how much I knew about MIT's academic system ... much more than "it's a pretty prestigious school" and I did bombard him with questions about the school and what it's like to be an aerospace engineer (what he majored in and what my 2nd career choice is right now).
He did ask near the end though, a curve ball question: "If you had all the resources in the world - financial, capital, everything - what would you do with it? How would you take advantage of that opportunity?" I gave him a really vague answer about helping people out, but I ended up e-mailing him a final answer along with my "Thanks for giving me that interview," because he did say that I could have one more week to continue my interview with e-mails or phone calls and he would be interested in what I had to say.
When I left, I felt that he saw me as the "average applicant" --- simply because all my responses were straightforward and a little dull. I wouldn't say it was a total disaster, but my interview did last 1 hour 10 minutes. But he was pretty tired tho because our interview started at 8 p.m. ... must have been tired from work so he didn't buy any of my tangents (he would always say "we can save that for next time")
But I am pretty grateful that I didn't start out like this:
"So, uh, how's the weather?"
Heh, when my interviewer asked what I would do if I had an infinite amount of money to do whatever I wanted with, I said I'd burn it because having an infinite amount of money in circulation is terrible for the economy.
Wow ur interviewers just went off in tangents lol asking some pretty cool questions...
I got interviewed by a canadian undergrad at carleton then grad at MIT for aerospace engineering... nice fellow... director of natural resources west coast management (1 spot below minister)).. sweet person... we had lots in common... he listened to rap music we had a common underground rap group in common... played basketball.. tall like me... he was getting married soon so i got him a wedding gift which was sweet... he asked me more about my extracurriculars if anything... and my family... and i asked him about his... its was sweet... 2 hours of sheer brilliance
Yah, my son's was definitely not 2 hours of sheer brilliance, lol! More like <1 hour of awkwardness. It seems like different people have different ways of communicating effectively. S can get across a lot of interesting stuff on a blog, video, list, photo essay, but not so much in an essay/interview. That whole linear/sentence/paragraph thing is so 2002! (kidding.)
Hey guys, I have an MIT interview in 2 days, and I have a couple questions about interviews in general.
1) what should I wear? We're meeting at the alum's work place, I think. He works for the Linksys company, and we're just meeting in a conference room there.
2) He asked for a bio/resume, what should I include? Is there a good link for this information?
3) What kind of questions should I anticipate?
4) What kind of questions should I ask?
5) and finally, is there any etiquette I should be aware of?
be yourself, seriously, there is only one way to approach this. act as you always do, and dont try to fake your image.
Resume, just put a bunch of awards and stuff, I guess he will try to look it over
Wear what you are comfortable in. If you like wearing dress pants and a tie--go with that.
Be prepared for questions about your interests and possibly your essays. Obviously ,"Why MIT?" might come up. You should ask what you are interested to know. This guy went to this place and most likely enjoyed it. You can ask him why and what he liked most, etc.
Don't over think it. Be yourself.
I have a question people, would you please answer? My MIT interviewer hasn't provided me with his email address. So I have to contact him by phone. When to contact. And wudn't that be wierd? "Hi Im XXX, Applying to MIT, wud u take my interview" ...how will i introduce myself?
And Im sort of scared.....what if he actually starts to interview me over the phone? lol
No, it's not weird to contact your EC by phone -- if that is the contact information your EC has provided, then that is how he is expecting to be contacted by applicants.
It would be fine to say, "Hi, my name is X, I'm applying for MIT this year, and you're my assigned EC. I'd like to set up an interview."
