Since this week was relatively short, with only two ISM classes and the PSAT interrupting one of the classes, there was not a lot of work time this week. However, I had my first interview, and spent the time this week completing my first interview assessment, writing a thank you note to Dr. Shiloh, and setting up another interview.

 

My first interview was with Dr. Shiloh at UT Southwestern. I was very nervous for the interview, as it was my first one and I had no idea what to expect. The building was very big, and I had some trouble finding his office, but I arrived early so I had time to find his office and still be a little early. Dr. Shiloh was very polite and willing to answer my questions, and the interview ended up lasting over an hour. Dr. Shiloh works with tuberculosis and infectious diseases, and after speaking with him I’m even more convinced I would like to do work with infectious diseases and immune system disorders. Dr. Shiloh also suggested the STARS program, a summer internship program at Southwestern as something I should look into.

 

In addition to my first interview, I also wrote my first interview assessment and thank you note. The assessment simply went into detail about what I had learned in the interview and how I hoped to use this knowledge. The thank you note followed the format of the online example, and thanked Dr. Shiloh for the time he gave and the information he shared. Having done these once, I believe having to do them again for each subsequent interview will be easier.

 

The final accomplishment of the week was scheduling another interview for the following friday. I contacted Dr. Jain, another researcher at Southwestern. Dr. Jain works with HIV, and will hopefully be able to share some knowledge on HIVs and research science. I plan to do some research into HIV and model the interview questions accordingly.