As promised last Wednesday, I will describe how I prepared my documents for application and how my interview went. First of all, I have applied quite late, to be precise on the 2nd of June and as far as I am aware the main application process starts earlier. I would recommend to apply as soon as you can as the later you apply the less chances you will have to get accepted. I believe they have a deadline when they interview everyone and if the required amount of people wasn’t accepted they will open up the application once again.
Motivation letter
Few basic recommendations:
When writing your motivation letter make sure to stick to the maximum number of words.
Always ask your current supervisors to check it. Ask multiple supervisors if you can. They all recruit students at some point, so they will understand basic requirements and would suggest improvements. I would not recommend going to university employability services (some of them help with CV and motivation letters) as they don’t necessarily know how to write it for science people. Unless you know that they are good I would avoid them.
So what I have written in my motivation letter:
Dear Sir or Madame….
General paragraph – 2 sentences about who are you and your goal (why you want to do PhD or science)
Motivation: Is there something that’s sets you apart from everyone else? If so state it, but its better not to lie and just say why you want to apply. I personally decided to write my motivation letter really honest as I did not think I would be accepted. (I had 2 sentences)
Academic excellence: General information about you BSc (award) and any volunteering work (if not directly linked to the field just briefly state that you were doing extracurricular activities). Also include info about your MSc or any placements and any additional awards, mini grants or participation in conferences. If you don’t have it, its ok just say what you have.
Regenerative Medicine Research Experience: I described my MSc degree and the project that I have done there. Also I included info about shadowing that I was doing in other labs while doing my MSc. Spend more time talking about your project, outline goals and how you are going to achieve them. (don’t state all techniques that you have done)
Why DTC in Regenerative Medicine at Manchester: I had one paragraph explaining why I like this program and why at this particular university and nowhere else. Make sure you research this well.
And that’s it.
CV
In my CV I had the following headings:
Objective
Education
Research experience – any projects that you have done even as a volunteer (basically anything in the lab). State names of your supervisors.
Laboratory skills
Scientific memberships
Academic and other relevant experience – volunteering work, additional projects anything that was not covered before.
Research interests – make sure it fits the university and program to which you are applying to.
Additional skills: image analysis software, Image editing and creation software, Statistical analysis packages (state the exact programs). Add anything that you know. Also you can add languages.
Grants and awards – I didn’t say what awards I got in my education section I placed them here.
Also I tend to add my LinkedIn webpage at the top so if they are interested they can have a look on my full CV.
For the formatting I like to use Garamond font size 11. (You can see the CV that I used for application below)
Presentation
The presentation was petrifying to me. I had my lab viewing with one of CDT students so I was late for the interview. I also got lost and couldn’t find the location... When I got to the room I was totally out of breath and my voice disappeared due to extreme thirst. :D I thought it will be a disaster. When I recovered my voice, I sped through the first few slides with trembling voice like a rocket. :D But then I cooled down and carried on like a normal human being. On the panel there were 3 people one CDT course director and 2 future tutors. One of them was always smiling, the second was so-so while the last was looking really strict on me. So I tried to concentrate on the first person.
In my presentation I covered:
Why regenerative medicine?
Academic excellence
BSc project – highlighted techniques that can be used in regenerative medicine field
Relevant volunteering – highlighted techniques
2 slides on my MSc project – with some results
Described what was covered in my MSC (taught component)
Why CDT in Reg Med at the University of Manchester
I had 10 slides in total and added extra slides in case they will ask me questions that I am not confident with answering. So those extra slides contained clinical need for my project with stats and signaling pathways that my project was based on. Also remember you will have time limit so rehearsal is key.
For the presentation, try to put as many pictures as you can, but don’t go overboard. No one likes reading text. What I tend to do is to put a picture and have a few words on the side that if someone got lost they could figure out what I am talking about at the moment. Find nice pictures and explain them but don’t put pictures that are irrelevant. Also don’t put any fancy animations just simple “appear or fade.”
Questions
This part is quite blurred in my memory as I was quite stressed so when I came out and my boyfriend asked how it went I couldn’t recall much. But I will try to describe what I remember.
After my presentation, they started asking me question predominantly about my MSc project which was related to tissue engineering field. I guess the project would always be the hottest topic, if you have done placements they might ask about that. In my case they asked me to explain the project again and asked what type of growth factor I used and why I chose it. (this is where my extra slides became handy). I haven’t been able to answer one question but its because I misunderstood it, but I think I figured it out later and kind of answered it. So if you can’t answer a question don’t panic they don’t expect you to be a genius. After that they offered me to have a seat and I could finally have some water again. Then they started asking more general questions like: how do I handle stress, do I know any PhD students, have I been offered a PhD elsewhere, why I am applying so late, why this university and program (again), are there any projects that I am interested, what I consider success. All those questions were quite easy and I think I have done well. Overall the interview lasted around 30 minutes but I think I stayed a bit longer as I was late…
Hope that helps, if you have any specific questions you can comment or
send me an email through the “contact me” tab. I am not extremely busy at the moment, so I will be able to answer quickly.
So that is it for this blog, need to prepare for my last presentation in this semester.