Hello.

I have an interview for a computer science PhD studentship with the University of Birmingham. I was wondering if anyone could shed a light on what I can expect (don't need specifics).

Many thanks

They're gonna ask you some questions and you're gonna attempt to answer them.

Ouch! That is a brutal response. Absolutely hilarious. But brutal. :-D

What, they said they didn't need specifics! :P

Well thanks to you I needed to spend a few minutes cleaning down the screen as I sprayed my tea all over it.

Hi Aldermere, as you may have gathered from previous responses, it is a bit hard to know what they might ask as it all depends on context (and quite possibly level of funding, availability of staff/resources at that university). My interview was some time ago and it is all a bit vague now.

However, given a different faculty, context, country, and level of funding-I applied for fee and research costs scholarship but not living expenses-given this, they mainly:

* Wanted to go through my application and proposal briefly
* Wanted to check regarding my preferences for supervisors so they could assist with allocation
* Checked that I was the same person 'in person' as 'on paper' (including level of confidence and my understanding of the process)
* Checked that I had some background knowledge of my research topic and could discuss this in interview
* Wanted to know my reasons for applying for a doctorate
* Gave me an outline of the process to follow.

I had a pretty similar experience to the poster above, with one exception because my PhD is interdisciplinary. We went through my application pretty much chronologically, and as the project is a mixture of A and B and the bulk of my experience was in B, they asked me to prepare a 10 min presentation about A (well before the interview). I think that's just because it is interdisciplinary though.