Congrats on the interview!! So this is going to be very professor specific. Some will focus on skillset, while others will focus on broader concepts. Some will be fine with your well rehearsed answers, while others will ask you questions that push you to the boundaries of your knowledge so that you critically think about the science. Their intention is getting you to say "I don't know, but based on xyz, I think this is a reasonable experiment/hypothesis". Intellectual and personal maturity is shown when you are extremely confident in your work (because you're exceptional at what you do) but are also aware of the boundaries of your knowledge. It's okay to not know things, but you need to be an expert in the research that you have personally conducted. Now onto specific questions. In some interviews, I was asked about my rationale for choosing one technique verses another. In another I was asked why I developed this construct in this way, and if you changed the experiment, what would you expect as the outcome? They may ask you questions about work from other big name professors in your field and if you've considered doing xyz experiment that seems to dovetail your personal research. You'll need to know the specifics of what you did, why you did it that way, and what other big names in the field are doing that could inform current and future project directions. Some professors had my CV pulled up and asked very specific questions about every bullet point. Other interviewers didn't ask anything about techniques and mostly discussed their own research. Since I have an industry background, I was also asked a lot of questions about how I adapted biological experiments into high-throughput assays, and why that matters to academics (lol). I was also asked why I'm going back to grad school when I'm probably making a ton of money in industry (also lol). If you're an older applicant, you may be asked that question as well: why go back to grad school when you probably already have an established career at this point. But the most oddball question I've received was: if you had unlimited resources, what research question would you ask and how would you go about answering it. This question seems easy, but in fact is extraordinarily challenging since a cookie cutter answer will show that you don't know your field very well. A great answer will show that you can think about a critical question in, not only your field, but also how it impacts adjacent fields, and what old school or novel technology will specifically address that gap in the field. It should be a wild and wacky idea that has a high likelihood of failing, but the scientific rationale is solid as a rock, because it shows that you're going beyond the boundaries of known science, which is really hard. You're being creative and adapting what you know in an unconventional way, which is low key required for science that changes entire fields. It also shows that you're not afraid of failing. And in your interview, if you can't think of a good answer in the moment but something comes up to you as your chat continues, circle back to that initial question that stumped you. It's so much better to say, "so I was actually thinking about your question a bit more, and I think my earlier answer wasn't the most thoughtful. Here's what I would actually do (insert an answer that shows that you've critically thought about the scientific question)" then to just leave it at a subpar answer. The most important thing, however, is to show you're interviewers that you're critically thinking, and adapting as they ask further questions, not reading a rehearsed speech. Let me know if you have any followup questions!! good luck!!!

@@bianca.phdinprogress wow thank you so much for the thorough response! I have a few co authored publications and while I was heavily involved in data collection and analysis, I’m not sure that I can speak to exactly the rationale behind why the methods that were chosen, were chosen. So I’m wondering what the best way to approach answering a question like that would be, since I obviously want to demonstrate that I was intellectually engaged in the projects in some capacity, rather than just following instructions per se

Aww thank you so much for the kind comment! Prepping for grad school was such a rough and anxiety inducing process for me, so I’m doing what I can to not only be as informative as possible, but hopefully reduce whatever anxiety I can! Thank you for watching ☺️

So glad that it’s helpful!! ☺️ thank you for watching and commenting!!!

Thank you!!!

So happy that it’s helpful!! Hopefully you stick around for my new videos! I’ll be posting one this weekend about how to interview effectively and another one next week discussing the competitiveness of PhD programs!

heh thanks for watching :))

aww thanks for the lovely comment!! glad the video was useful :)

hehe I’ll still be learning!! Just taking it more slowly! Was thinking about making a Chinese progress video every other month just to keep that going! thank you for always watching and commenting such lovely things :))

@@bianca.phdinprogress If you don't mind, I would have some advice. I know from experience that you only think of finishing and getting a title now. However, in my opinion, the most essential thing if you want to stay in academia is to keep in mind that you need the following project proposal after your PhD.

I use luma fusion to edit and make all the animations myself on procreate!! I have some screen cap videos of me making the animations if you think that would be interesting to show!! Luma fusion is nice because it's cheap and a one time cost. It does get a little glitchy at the end of a video with the amount of editing I do, but it's not the worst. My editing style isn't super complicated, just requires a lot of text, zooms, and animations! For the static animations, I just use a reference photo (mostly memes) and draw the outline multiple times (it gives the appearance of it moving). For the dynamic animations (aka eyes bulging or arms moving), I look at a reference photo and draw the outline of 3 key frames (going from point A to point B to point C). Usually the reference is point B. So if I were doing an eye bulging animation, point A would be a super tiny eye, point B is similar to the reference, and point C is the eye getting cartoonishly big. That's the boundary of the animation. Then I just make the intermediate outlines and you have a fairly smooth animation! Usually each dynamic animation is around 10-12 frames. But if you notice, I'm choosing to make only 2 or 3 parts of the drawing move. I'm not an animator by training, so everything is self taught, which limits how detailed my animations can be!! thanks for watching!!

@@bianca.phdinprogress wow thats so cool!!!! I didn't realize you had to create them all yourself. Thanks for the detailed instructions I'll definitely look into it because your animations really add to your videos. And if you do have any screen captures of your process of creating them that would be super interesting to show

@DivineBre I’ve actually decided to upload sped up versions of some of the animations as shorts!! Unfortunately I didn’t screen record some of the earlier ones 🫠 but I’ll record new ones I make! I have to condense 2+hours of drawing into 1 min for shorts though, so maybe I’ll upload a slower version if that’s something you think could be interesting!! Thank you for the comment and the idea for animation behind the scenes! :)

aww thank you for the kind comment!!! if it was helpful, please share it with anyone else that you think could benefit from watching :)

<3 <3 I'm so excited for the egghead arc hehe :)

@@bianca.phdinprogress i really needa catch up T.T but at least that's what i got these next 8 months for... BrAiN rOt AnD lAnGuAgE gRiNd. anndd.... possible youtube channel :o

wow, that's crazy!! how did your applications go?? a PhD in linguistics sounds so interesting but super challenging!

I wouldn't say I'm smarter than you! my post doc told me that the ppl that complete their PhDs aren't necessarily intelligent, they're just too stubborn to quit HAHA. thank you for watching!!

thank you for the comment!! I made a community post if you want to read in more detail, but I'll be mostly posting graduate school content now. I have very little time to study mandarin while doing my PhD, so it felt pretty disingenuous to continue to post language learning videos. if you're interested in this new type of content, then stay tuned for new videos! if you're not interested in this type of content, then thank you so much for watching my language learning videos!! really appreciate it :))

​@@bianca.phdinprogress Will you be leaving up your old Website biancalearns, Please don't take it down or your old videos on Mandarin.

Yep!! I’ll be leaving everything up!! So no need to worry about that :) thanks for watching and utilizing those resources!! c:

@@bianca.phdinprogress Thanks very much, Do you still have Patreon?

I stopped it awhile ago because I wasn't making consistent videos anymore. It felt wrong to have patreon members supporting me if I didn't have great content coming out regularly. I'm going to post regularly from now on though, so I'm thinking about bringing back a patreon, or maybe a buy me a coffee instead (there's more options than patreon), if I keep it up for a solid 2-3 months and people are interested!

aww many thanks for watching and for the kind comment!! I'll just double check with my PI that I'm allowed to post my finalized grant on KZbin hahaha let me know if you have any other video ideas that you would find useful while you're applying for graduate programs!!

@@bianca.phdinprogress if you have any experience with peers within your program maybe you could make a video on how to like effectively maximize group effort because that's what I'm worried about😅 I tend to be super outspoken and type-A or completely meek and helpless and finding a common medium between the two would be helpful

that's a great idea!! my cohort is 16 ppl so soft socials skills are really important, but most STEM majors are severely lacking in that department HAHA.

So glad to hear that!!! Let me know if you have any other suggestions for video ideas!!

thats so awesome to hear!! I'll definitely do some videos in my lab and showing some of the everyday struggles of PhD life, alongside the videos explaining what the hell is going on in academia l o l o l. so happy to hear that your chinese is progressing and so thankful that you'll be sticking around for this change :))