First interview tomorrow

Don't be afraid to pause, or to take a moment to think about your response to any given question. From my experience, if you are asked a question and you're taking a second to formulate your response, the second you think to yourself, "Hurry up!!" then you'll get in a mild panic and your thoughts will become scrambled.

But if you can be comfortable saying, "Hm..." and looking thoughtfully for a moment, it's not a bad thing. Obviously you don't want to sit there forever, but just relax and take things easy, speak slowly when you respond (again, not like you're dense, but just slow enough that you come across relaxed).

I think I have a tendency to speak too fast so I constantly make myself speak slowly and articulately (you know, like Barack Obama).

In my first interview I was asked the question: What is something that you are very passionate about outside of work and your family?

Not a hard question, but I had a few things to choose from and it took me a second to think which one I would talk about, so to buy a few seconds I asked, "Outside of work and my family?" like I wanted to clarify that I heard him correctly. As I'm writing this that actually sounds bad, but it was a very conversational interview and it sounded fine at the time.

Also I think it's important to keep in mind that what an interview really is, is just a chance for them to get to know you. There isn't some special "interview etiquette" carved in stone. Obviously there are general guidelines, but I don't think anyone is going to ding you if you ask them to repeat a question, or if you don't ask just the right amount of questions. I think a lot of people go into interviews thinking there is some sort of special protocol they need to follow, like, "I have to sit up straight, smile, make eye contact 70% of the time, make two jokes to show my sense of humor, and I'll ask my interviewer four questions. I'll also name drop three professors and two current students."

But in reality you'll come across much better if you sound sincere. I was visiting Yale and there was this random professor who stopped into the admissions office to talk to a bunch of us about this new class he was going to be teaching, and after he spoke for a few minutes he asked if anybody had any questions, and this one girl says, like a robot, "What do you think students find most surprising about this class?" Literally like she was reading it off a piece of paper. And the professor says, "Well, I don't know, like I just said, this is a class I will be teaching for the first time next semester."

So make sure you're sincere, and make sure you LISTEN to them, because they may give you some info about the school or program, and you don't want to ask them a question that they already answered.