Finally! My last graduate school interview! (let me tell you it was a long and tiring couple of weeks).
For my final graduate school interview at Iowa State, I left on a Thursday (the 20th of February) and returned the following Saturday. I drove the five and a half hours down to Ames Iowa and listened to my latest audiobook obsession. I left around 9:30 on Thursday and ended up getting to Ames at about 4:00 pm.
Interview weekend began at 5:30 with an informal introduction and a poster session where interviewees could talk to the students. The students were all very nice and it was interesting to see all the different research projects going on (though most of them were structural based projects). After the poster session a couple of graduate students and professors took us to a local restaurant where we ate and discussed random topics. I ended up talking a lot about my cat and my hedgehog. Go figure, I guess I'm just a really proud animal mom.
The night ended at about 7:30 which I was very happy about as the rest of my interview weekends were extremely long. 7:30 felt early enough for me to relax for a bit and prepare for the following day.
The next day we didn't have to be to Iowa State until 9:00 am, which was also really nice. I slept in a bit and then drove with a couple of the other interviewees to the college. The first thing on the agenda was a brief talk about the program itself, including: stipends, a timeline, and classes to take. A couple of the professors gave brief intros about their research and encouraged us to talk to them later during their interviews as they were looking for students. Finally interviews started. I was rather surprised that the program had us walk ourselves around and find our interviews but it ended up working out. I found my way around with a little help from random strangers who I happened to see when I was lost.
During our break for lunch, some of the students took us on a tour of the facilities. This was interesting and though they have some very cool machinery, I was mainly interesting in finding the bathroom at this point. The building was very beautiful, don't get me wrong, but it was also very confusing to navigate. In fact I stood outside the wrong door waiting for an interview until one of the other students showed up and said they were supposed to have an interview with that professor.
After interviews we had a small get together with the professors which was very informal and nice. I felt like I really got to know the professors while I was there which was awesome. To wrap up the night we went to dinner and then turned in early. Early enough that I could watch a movie and eat my cheese cake in quiet.
The next morning one of the students took us to breakfast which was really nice. I had a crepe for the first time and was pleasantly surprised. Apparently I like crepes.
And that's how my visit to Iowa State University went!
I hope you all have enjoyed these updates on my graduate school visit. I'll be announcing where I'm planning on going to graduate school in the next couple days so keep an eye out for that.
Thanks,
Saren
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