u/wemustbeghosts

I have been lucky enough to schedule an "informal interview" with a professor this Thursday, before my actual MD/PhD interview. What should I expect? Should I prepare to answer traditional interview questions, or expect more questions about my background and research?

Relatedly (and I might be overthinking this), I know I should ask about the professor's research, but how detailed should I be? Should I be asking specific questions about their recently published papers, or keep it more broad? So far I plan to ask about the current/upcoming projects in their lab, how they see their lab's work evolving over the next 5 years, and for more information about a specific cohort they are setting up.

Thank you in advance!!

I am having a difficult time coming up with the number of hours I "spent" on a life experience on my UBC application and was hoping to get some insight on how other people handled it.

For context, I have written about how the deaths of several friends in adolescence impacted my academic trajectory and research interests. I have no clue how to even begin estimating the number of hours "spent" on this experience. Do I put down the number of hours I spent at funerals? Enter 0? I am at a bit of a loss.

How have other people handled similar situations?

Thank you in advance!

https://preview.redd.it/72r00wdi6w4h1.png?width=979&format=png&auto=webp&s=c02a88b8b8bf91506a9e45befcab4267d38e20ee

Tested 05/02, started studying in mid January having yet to take bio 2 or biochem. The amount of times I thought that I was crazy for even trying this... I even nearly retook my test because I thought that I had royally fucked up C/P, but I guess it wasn't so bad!

To anyone still going through it: trust the process. You are making progress and your hard work is paying off, even when it feels like you are just sliding backwards. Don't give too much weight to what everyone else says you should be doing: on weekdays, I only studied 1-2 hours a day if at all, then 10am-8pm on weekends. Far below the full-time studying (or even part-time studying) that other people recommend, but that was all I could fit in. If you can't fit in the hours, the trick is to make the time that you do have count – do practice passages, learning the material as you go, instead of spending so much time on content review. You got this!