英国论坛
Aston University(阿斯顿大学)
所在地区:英格兰所在城市:BirminghamTIMES排名:29
我是一名大四学生，申请了阿斯顿大学PhD Management/Marketing，近期被要求面试，现将面试经历分享如下！
今天中午天气不怎么样，阴着天，给人比较郁闷的感觉。
这样的烂天气果然不是什么好兆头，结果我竟然看错了学校给我的时间，晚了一个小时，于是，今天就是一个短会面了，周四还要再谈一次。
ASTON的Marketing Group占了b-school 2nd floor一半的面积，而我要见的老师的办公室在最里面。我是走过了3道门才找到，曲径通幽啊！
不过，同时发现这个group就有4个prof.看起来还是有点实力的。
因为知道自己晚了，所以，也就没什么心情观光，直接敲门进了professor的办公室。
M (Me-Rodmace) P (Professor)
M: I am terribly sorry, I am late. I thought our meeting….
P: Never mind, that’s not a problem. Please have a seat.
P: The purpose of our meeting is to make sure that you are the person I want to cooperate with and I am the right person to you. Otherwise, PhD study would be miserable for both students and supervisors. (Laugh…)
M: That is absolutely right…
P: I normally do not take any new PhD student. You know, as the head, I have to spend much time on admin and meetings. Because your proposal shows exactly what I would like to conduct, I consider you as my PhD student. （好象先让我知道机会难得）
P: What is your career perspective?
M: To be a professor probably.
P: That’s great. That’s what we are aiming at. Some students want to work in the industry in the future so they do not spend enough time on producing quality papers…然后就说了，希望我能写几个不错的论文发表，他可以做第二作者。然后说了supervisor和student之间应该是mutual beneficial.(Laugh…)
M: Of course. I totally agree…
P: Good. Let me tell you what you will do during your PhD study. Firstly, you will enroll as a master student. During the first year, you will…..然后就是把整个的structure给我讲了一遍.
M: Sounds interesting. So I will be registered as a master student first?
P: Yes. But the first year is very important… At the end of the first year, you need to hand in a formal proposal which will be evaluated by the committee. If you pass it, you would start your 2nd year research. Our system is like the US one. At the end of the year, you will clearly know what you want and be prepared from theory, data, and analysis aspects.
M: How long can I get a PhD degree based on this new route system?
P: 3 years in total. My part time student can finish his research within 3 years, so I believe as a full time student you can get your degree in 3 years.
P: 开始夸ASTON，说了很多牛人，还有学校和业界的联系，总之，就是说ASTON绝对牛， 然后说了，your proposal is an interesting and good start, but need to…. That is the reason why we provide all of our PhD students a year to prepare their formal proposals.
M: During my preliminary research in LSE, data collecting was a problem. My concern is about the data collection. Should I do it by myself?
P: You do not need to do the survey and collect the data….
M: It’s time consuming.
P: Right…
M: I mean whether Aston can help me to get enough data set from the companies…
P: That’s not a problem at all. We have lots of connections…a lot of data available. We can offer those companies free analysis and they have no reason to refuse. For me, I am currently doing…
P: We have lots of modelers. XXX and DDD are leading the research group. I am the head so I do not have enough time to lead this group. I noticed that you want to be modeler as well, right?
M: Yes.
P: Great! MMM and EEE are focusing their models based on Time Series, which is on the leading edge of marketing research. Maybe you can do that in your future research as well. You math is good, right?
M: I have confidence on my math.
P: That is good. I know that Chinese students are good at math not like those students from Europe. (Laugh…)
P: I already told you our structure and content. Simple and direct. (Laugh…)
M: （我就不明白他笑什么，于是和他一起傻笑…）
这个时候秘书进来了，说该去开会了（估计她看到我们在这里傻笑很可笑，于是也笑起来…）
而后我们就简单的说了点别的，就告别，并约好周四再聊。不过，老头说了，下周让我把已经做的研究仔细给他讲一讲，然后又笑着跟我说，别再搞错时间啊！
整个见面20分钟多点，感觉就是老头对Aston宣传的presentation一样，我几乎没怎么说话，就听老头一个人说了。老头人很好，非常可爱！至少我对他还比较满意。不过，钱这个问题还是没来得及谈，只能下次见面再说了。
