<p>Hoping Professor X will be able to comment, but I welcome any comments from applicants with specific experience themselves:</p>
<p>Background: social psychology Ph.D. applicant</p>
<p>When being interviewed over the phone or in-person by potential professors of interest, how much detail should an applicant go into about his/her past research experience? </p>
<p>I have completed several independent studies, a summer research program and I’ve also been a research assistant in multiple labs. Is it appropriate to discuss the overall research question, the methods employed and the outcome for each independent study? Anything else that should be covered, such as possible future directions for the research or mentioning aspects of the outcome that were particularly interesting/surprising to me? As for the summer internship and R.A. experiences, should I simply touch very briefly on them (e.g., my role, skills learned)?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance for the comments and good luck to all who are applying/waiting for responses!</p>
<p>During my interviews, it seemed as though professors wanted a somewhat concise statement about my research experiences (as a whole–surprisingly, no professor went down my resume asking about each experience individually). I responded with the research question/purpose, along with experimental methods I used, where and what department, the supporting agency (e.g. NSF REU), etc.–just listed out details of everything in probably a minute or two. Basically, I didn’t give a volume of information up front and only once did I get a further question about my research. </p>
<p>I got the impression that in most cases, the professor really wanted to hear that I have done research and like doing it. So, while the research question and methods are certainly appropriate, I’m not sure that I would mention things like possible future directions or interesting results unless prompted for them. Every interview I had, it seemed that professors were more interested in hearing what interests me about their group and their research. Since I had a lousy semester early on, I found myself fielding questions on that more than anything. This was for a Ph.D in materials science, so your experience may be very different from mine.</p>
<p>Thanks, jr1038. Your perspective is very helpful and I think you’re right that they are probably more interested in hearing one’s enthusiasm shine through as much as just the high level overview. </p>
<p>This advice sounds like it will be applicable to my field so thanks for taking the time to respond!</p>
<p>My interviews have included precious little about my previous research, though the ones that wanted to know have wanted more than just a five minute summary of all of my projects. At the very least, assemble which projects (because it sounds like you have many of them in your past) were most relevant to the lab at hand. Pick four or five projects. Discuss the 1)context/problem 2)setup and strategy 3)results/conclusions. These aren’t anything like job interviews, there is a lot of serious concern about your interests rather than your experience.</p>