Thinking About Graduate School? Use Informational Interviews to Your Advantage!

Approach Graduate School as a Career Change

You've been an undergraduate for 3 years. Before that, you were a student for 12 or so years. Sitting in a classroom, absorbing and regurgitating information, has been your full-time job for most of your life. Now you're thinking about graduate school. It has "school" in the name, but it is a radically different experience than what you've known for the better part of two decades!

Graduate students work on independent projects, manage teams of undergraduates, navigate university bureaucracy, assemble a committee of professors to advise their work, apply for grant money, teach classes, and so much more. If they take classes, they read many pages of dense literature weekly, and they're expected to speak during every class about their interpretation of that literature.

That's really different than what you're doing now, isn't it?

Because graduate school is a career decision, approach it as a job-seeker does. Gather information. Network. Weigh your wants and needs against potential sacrifices (for example, intellectual freedom and creativity at the expense of living near your family; sacrificing a steady salary now for the potential to earn more later).

You will need to learn about the informational interview. It's invaluable for job-seekers, and this technique can be used to bolster your graduate school application as well.


What is an Informational Interview?

This is a conversation you have with another person where you ask about their experiences. It's an opportunity to gain knowledge about a field, to get used to the lingo of the job, and to gain insight.

The golden rule of informational interviews is "Do not ask for a job". In our case, though, we're going to bend this rule. Presumably you're reaching out to this professor to learn about their research and graduate program because you want to apply. In addition to usual informational interview prep, you'll want to have a short pitch about your interests at the ready. You don't need a fully-formed research question for this discussion. But if you really, REALLY want to work on frogs, and this professor only studies mice, now is the time to assess that fit.


Benefits of the Academic Informational Interview

1. Find out if a professor plans to retire soon, move universities, or is simply not a good conversationalist (and potentially not the right advisor for you)
2. Get recommendations for other programs to consider. For example, if you say you want to work on frogs, but they only work on fish, they may mention a colleague who better fits your interests. This can also lead into a warm introduction
3. Get warm introductions to their graduate students, who you should also interview to see if the lab/cohort culture is a good fit for you
4. Scope out trends in the field, up-and-coming hot topics, and new technologies
5. Pick up the lingo of the field. If you say you want to know how tadpoles become frogs, your interviewee may re-contextualize that as "ontogony" "evo-devo" or "developmental genomics". Used appropriately, these are stronger phrases to use in your application essays
6. The program may have a fellowship or scholarship that would improve your application's chances if you apply, which might not be obvious on the program's website

How to "Cold-Call" Professors

I have always defaulted to this email template, from The Professor is In. Note the differences in the two examples shown. The first one is instantly recognizable as an email from an undergraduate by the format alone. The second one explains why you are reaching out to a total stranger by explaining how you know of them and their work.

Do I always follow this script word-for-word? No! Once I had my Master's, I didn't feel the need to lead with my GPA. Sometimes I know of the professor through a mutual contact, or I read a popular news article about their research. I usually don't ask for a campus visit at this point - a phone call or Zoom/Skype meeting are appropriate. But the template is a solid foundation.

For more templates, and more advice about informational interviews, check out this post by Ramit Sethi. I read his blog extensively before applying to my current PhD program, and his career advice easily translates to getting a graduate school offer.


Conclusion

You might have picked up on this by now - networking isn't just for finding a 9-5 job. If you're going for a PhD position, that's a 4-7 year commitment, and your potential advisor is facing that too. Who do they want to train for half a decade? We all want to work with people we get along with and can talk to. Informational interviews not only help you get information. You're putting a face to a name. When your application is under review, they know who you are. You've already shown a potential supervisor that you're communicative, interested in their work, and a go-getter.