<p>For the interview at my school, they made me take this test on preparing dilutions (i.e. you have a 10 M stock solution of NaCl, how would you prepare 1 L of 1 M of the NaCl)…It was a normal interview until they gave me the test…they asked me what my strong points were, a research project that I had done, why research in the first place, etc. The internship is competitive, as they only choose 1 applicant out of 10 from the interview.
My question is that is this normal for research internships? or is it uncommon? is this how they further eliminate candidates?
I think i did fine …we covered this in gen chem …but still wondering.
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(btw whats the answer of the problem? I think it’s that you take 100 ml of the 10 M stock solution, add 900 ml of water, making it 1 L of 1 M…is that right?)</p>
<p>Anyone? Im sure one of you guys have interviewed for multiple internships that can share your experiences!</p>
<p>MV=MV, you can do it :)</p>
<p>hah! thanks lol …i got it haha</p>
<p>so no reply to the experience part?</p>
<p>Beats me. I picked up research positions by email PIs and getting invited to their lab meetings. I’ve never been a part of a formal interview process for a research position. Doesn’t sound out of the ordinary though, especially if you’ll be doing dilutions in the lab.</p>
<p>D2 had to take a dilutions test to get hired as paid lab intern in 11th grade.</p>
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<p>OP, I’ve had multiple internships but only one “interview”. (all the PI wanted to know is if I was in for the long haul, and to let me know that the lab generated a lot of publications 
)</p>
<p>Not the standard, but not crazy either. When I interviewed for my lab position in the insect behavior lab group, they had me look under microscopes and identify how many queens were in each colony (after showing me how to identify queens).</p>
<p>^that’s cool hah…but stressful i bet. I panicked when they first told me this. Totally took me by surprise. I was trying to remember how to do dilutions from chem lol…hopefully went well. And thanks for all the replies guys!</p>
<p>There’s very few ways that you will actually be vital to the lab as an undergrad.</p>
<p>But, you can screw up a ton of experiments and that’s by making a mistake when you prepare reagents. Hence, it makes a lot of sense for the lab to make sure you can prepare dilutions correctly.</p>