Watching our undergraduate research students give their final presentations, and *wow* there's a wide range of how much they've accomplished in their ~7 months of work: some make me feel keenly aware of the shortcomings of my PhD, and others seem like they've only really worked for the last month. Research is hard.
It's alsp really interested to see the differences in how they answer questions. I love it when people get asked really hard and broad questions: it's a great opportunity to demonstrate what they know, demonstrate their ability to think rationally beyond what they know, and admit when they can't reason their way any further. All great skills! But some students seem to really freak out at the prospect of open questions with no simple right/wrong answer