Meeting with a Prof

DISCLAIMER: This post is long.

I met with a potential advisor on Monday. I decided that meeting new people in a new setting is rather stressful. My mom was surprised to hear that. I guess she sees me as a social, outgoing person, which I might be, but I think it's only in a comfortable setting. For instance, I'm outgoing in my job because I know what I'm talking about and I'm confident in my position. Anyways, I digress.

I think the meeting with the professor went well. His name is Dr. Alejandro Acevedo, and he is a biology professor at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA. He was very nice and informative, so I'm just going to share some of the info he gave me.

The first big thing we talked about was the differences between different schools. I told him that I am also looking at Oregon State and University of Washington, which are considerably bigger than WWU. He told me that at a bigger university, professors have a higher obligation and expectation to be involved in research. They will be applying for bigger grants, have more research going on, and will most likely not be too involved with their students' research. It will most likely be a post-doc working closely with me. At a smaller university, like WWU, the professors are expected to teach more than at a bigger university. They are definitely expected to be involved with research, but they will also teach, and thus going to a smaller school like WWU would result in working with a prof in more of a mentor role. (I like this!)

The next big thing we discussed was funding. He said that if I were a student of his, I would work during the school year as a Teaching Assistant (TA) to fund my program. However, right now he does not have any grant money to fund a student over the summer. So that would be something I need to consider when I decide if I want to apply. It would be kind of a risk to apply and go to Western but then have no funding for summer. And depending on the grant, he said that my research could go one of two ways. If he gets no funding, then I could develop a thesis based on what I want and what his expertise is (what he would be willing to supervise). However, if he gets a grant, it could dictate specific research projects. (Side note: I actually had a dream last night that he sent me an email saying he did not get any funding. GAH!)

After that, he wanted to know a bit about me, especially in what kind of experience I have. I don't have research experience, and I don't have as many upper-division biology classes, but I do have organizational skills and time management. He said at one point that he would rather take a good student with good timelines than a brilliant student that he couldn't work with. It is one of the reasons he likes to meet his potential students in person. He wants to see if he could work with that student: can they take criticism, are they afraid to ask questions, do they speak articulately? I hope that he liked me based on those questions!

I had a hard time being able to tell if he liked me or not. He spoke in rather neutral terms like "a student I would work with would do this..." rather than "you would do this." I also felt like I was rather quiet, rather than my usual talkative self.

He said that he would like all of his potential students to let him know in December what their intentions are in regards to actually applying to Western. If I process all the info he gave me and decide that I would still like to apply, email him and let him know so that he can decide if he wants to take me on as a student.

I'm pretty sure that I want to apply to go there. I'll need to go through stuff and make sure it's really something I would want to commit myself to for 2 years. But that is another post for another day. :)