Top 10 PhD Interview Questions

So, you’ve been invited for a PhD interview. Congratulations! This means that the admission committee
thinks you are qualified and capable of doing a PhD at their university. The interview will allow the
committee to determine if you’re a good fit, and you have the motivation and drive to complete a
doctorate. While you cannot predict the exact questions you will be asked, certain topics are almost
inevitable. Here are ten common PhD interview questions.

Good morning Professors,

Can you hear me clearly?

Ok. Thank you.

1. Tell us about yourself

This is a popular opener for just about any type of interview. It’s meant to be an easy icebreaker, but that
doesn’t mean there isn’t a wrong answer. Make sure to your response is relevant to the context of a PhD
interview. Talk about your academic background, motivation, and interests. You don’t have to get into
the details at this point, just give an overview.

Sure! My fullname is Long Tan Le, and you can shortly call me by Long. Here is my passport.

I'm currently a Research and Teaching Assistant at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology. This is also
the school I got my Honor BEng degree in Computer Engineering.

I am looking forward to continuing my education to exploit my potential and to make contributions to

the field of Computer Science and Engineering. So I decide to apply to the Vingroup Scholarship as the
first step to achieve my goals.

My research interest is mainly focus on applying AI to the cutting-edge applications in networking such
as: Cloud/Edge Computing, Network Function Virtualization/Software-Defined Networking, and Network
Security.

I think the knowledge, skills, and experience in these areas will help me pursue my graduate studies
abroad, in a well-known university.

And I hope that we will have a great interview today.

Please let me know you have any questions to know more about me.

2. Why do you want to do a PhD?

This is another straightforward question that doesn’t have a straightforward answer. A PhD is a big
undertaking and you’ll have to be driven to see it though. Your answer should address your motivation
for doing a PhD in a way that conveys your passion and enthusiasm for the subject.
My research works and my practical training in undergraduate years have given me plenty of passion
and excitement to my interest areas, and I feel that I have sufficient motivation and aptitude to work in
them. I want to go in-depth knowledge in everything I work on, and of course I also want to contribute
my work to science. So I believe that working towards a PhD will be a right decision for my future career.

3. Why are you interested in this program?

What drew you to this program and this school? Does it have a unique feature or take a different approach
than other programs? Are there certain professors you are interested in working with? Your answer to this
questions shows you have done some research and are ready to engage in the department. It’s also an
opportunity to demonstrate that you don’t just want a PhD, you want one from this school.

The Vingroup scholarship give me a better opportunity to pursue my interest to the fullest.

4. What experience makes you a good candidate?

Yes, the interviewer has read your CV, but this question allows you to draw their attention to specific
qualifications or skills that might not be obvious from just your resume. Talk about courses you have
taken that have taught you the necessary skills for graduate work or give examples of past research
experience from your Bachelor’s or Master’s.

My attitude, my background, and my selected major

5. How did you develop this proposal?

There are no trick questions here. The interviewer wants to see that you are engaged with the field and
spent some time preparing your proposal. Take them through your thought process and discuss the
background reading and research you did. What other approaches did you consider before deciding on
this one? What will your project contribute to the field?
6. What difficulties would you expect to encounter during this project?

No matter how carefully you plan, no project goes off without a hitch. Be honest about where you see
potential difficulties, but more importantly discuss how you plan to work through them.

7. What are your strengths and weaknesses?

Another classic interview question, and one you definitely don’t want to be answering off the top of your
head. Pick a strength that is relevant to this position and then give a few examples of how you have used
it well. When it comes to choosing a weakness, be truthful and then (using examples again) talk about
how you have been working to overlcome it.

Strengths:

Hard-working: I always try to come best with everything

Creative:

Determination:

Weakness:

Flexibility and adaptability: I think the first time studying abroad I won’t be flexibility and adaptability.
But I’m a quick learner, so it is not a big challenge for me.

8. Tell us about a time you experienced a setback

The next three to six years of your PhD won’t be smooth sailing. You are likely to hit many snags along
the way. The interviewer wants to know you are resourceful and can handle these setback. Try to think of
an academic challenge you have had to overcome rather than a personal one.

9. What are your future career plans?

This is another way to suss out your motivations for doing a PhD and see if you have given a thought to
what comes after your doctorate. How will a PhD help you achieve your future goals? Someone with a
clear goal in mind is likely to be more committed to doing a PhD. For many, the goal will be to pursue an
academic career, in which case this is an opportunity to show you understand the academic career path.

10. Do you have any questions for us?

Remember that this interview goes both ways. It is important that you have some questions to ask the
interviewer to show your engagement and the serious consideration you are giving their program. You
are preparing to spend several years of your life at this school. Think about what is important to you and
what would make or break your decision to attend this university. Prepare a list of questions ahead of
the interview.

Of many research topics in Cloud Computing, do you think which potential research topics should I
choose to write a PhD proposal?

Do you have any advices for me with my choice of universities?

Two of the most interesting topics in the tech world today are edge computing and artificial
intelligence/machine learning

Applications that combine edge computing and machine learning (ML) to enable new kinds of
experiences and new kinds of opportunities in industries ranging from Mobile and Connected Home, to
Security, Surveillance, and Automotive.

Cloud computing, Mobile, IoT, AI, and other emerging technologies are becoming a major accelerators
to digital transformation in companies.

Today, we can connect everything digitally to Cloud Computing.

Cloud has many features, which makes it’s future brighter in the IT sector

Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of compute power, database, storage, applications, and
other IT resources via the internet with pay-as-you-go pricing.

Cloud computing gives you access to servers, storage, databases, and a broad set of application services
over the Internet. A cloud services provider such as Amazon Web Services, owns and maintains the
network-connected hardware required for these application services, while you provision and use what
you need via a web application.

Benefits of Cloud

- Agility
- Fast deployment
- Cost saving
Security
The data which are stored in the cloud is secure but not fully. The small companies which are
providing cloud services may or may not provide proper security to the data. So in the future, we
can prevent from cyber attacks by providing better security. The cloud providers provide better
security measures opening balance ways to prevent cyber attacks.
The basic concept behind edge computing is the idea of distributing computing intelligence across an
entire network instead of centralizing it in the cloud.

Practically speaking, this means that, for example, instead of having a security camera stream the
content of its video feed up to the cloud to be analyzed for certain situations (unknown people, objects,
etc.), that analysis can start to be done within the camera itself. In many cases, a cloud-based analysis
may still occur, but it’s likely to be on a much smaller segment of the video data. The benefits of this
approach are many. First, it dramatically reduces the amount of data that has to be sent over the
network, thereby reducing network congestion, speeding up operation and, in many instances, reducing
costs. In addition, the performance is typically much better because the processing can be done in real-
time within the camera, and avoid any potential latencies or other delays that can occur across any type
of network connection. In the case of surveillance, real-time analysis can make the difference between
safety and disaster!

Edge Computing has emerging computing model for

Edge computing extends cloud computing capabilities by bringing services close to the edge of a
network and thus supports a new variety of services and applications.

Benefits of Edge Computing:

Speed

The most important benefit of edge computing is its ability to increase network performance by
combatting latency. Since IoT edge computing devices process data locally or in nearby edge
data centers, the information they collect doesn’t have to travel nearly as far as it would under a
traditional cloud architecture.

Security

While the proliferation of IoT edge computing devices does increase the overall attack surface
for networks, it also provides some important security advantages. Traditional cloud computing
architecture is inherently centralized, which makes it especially vulnerable to distributed denial
of service (DDoS) attacks and power outages. Edge computing distributes processing, storage,
and applications across a wide range of devices and data centers, which makes it difficult for any
single disruption to take down the network.

Scalability

Building a dedicated data center is an expensive proposition. In addition to the substantial up-
front construction costs and ongoing maintenance, there’s also the question of tomorrow’s needs.
Traditional private facilities place an artificial constraint on growth, locking companies into
forecasts of their future computing needs. If business growth exceeds expectations, they may not
be able to capitalize on opportunities due to insufficient computing resources.

Reliability

Given the security advantages provided by edge computing, it should not come as a surprise that
it offers better reliability as well. With IoT edge computing devices and edge data centers
positioned closer to end users, there is less chance of a network problem in a distant location
affecting local customers. Even in the event of a nearby data center outage, IoT edge computing
devices will continue to operate effectively on their own because they handle vital processing
functions natively.

– The under-explored issues for the Federated Learning scheme:

 The uncertainty of wireless channels
 UEs with heterogeneous power constraints
 Local data size
– We study to analyze two questions:
 When UEs should spend more effort on computation to achieve high learning accuracy
and less communication updates, or vice versa?
 How to strike a balance between two conflicting goals of minimizing Federated
Learning time and UE energy consumption?
– An analysis of two trade-offs:
 Between computation and communication latencies determined by learning accuracy
level
 Between the Federated Learning time and UE energy consumption
Edge computing is the processing and analysis of data along a network edge, closest to the point of its
collection, so that data becomes actionable in real time without any latency instead of processing in the
cloud.
Edge computing is not a new concept but with cloud computing and machine learning it is becoming
more main stream.

Edge devices can be laptops, sensors, smartphones, gateways, etc.

This does not mean cloud is getting obsolete. Cloud computing is still going to play a big role in digital
transformation. Cloud computing will take a more dominant position when actions require significant
computing power, managing data volumes from across plants, asset health monitoring, and machine
learning, and so on. The bottomline is that cloud and edge are both necessary to gain the most value
from the sophisticated, varied, and volume of data applied across cloud and edge, wherever it makes
the most sense to achieve the desired outcomes
The interview is your time to shine, and being prepared will allow you to do just that.

Good luck!