The Interview ... OMG!!

~I've always considered myself to be just average talent and what I have is a ridiculous insane obsessiveness for practice and preparation.~

Will Smith

 

 



Where to even start?

Well, as I said in 'First', this all started when I decided that I wanted a PhD. After that, there were so many questions running through my head:

• Should I try to work and complete the PhD?
• Should I complete it at UWI?
• How do you even chose a PhD program?
• What exactly do I want to research?
• Who is the expert in my area?
• Who is doing the cutting edge research in my area?
• If I do leave and complete this PhD, where do I want to go? UK? US? Europe?
• How the hell am I going to afford a PhD?

Long story short (I could be blogging forever if I went through each of these questions), I started doing my research to answer these questions. I then became a little more settled, a little more focused and started applying for a few scholarships with a plan and positive attitude.

After this research (well maybe during the research)  I settled on a university that I was keen on in the UK and applied for a scholarship they were offering. You cannot imagine how happy I was when I received an email saying that I would be having an interview, which would be the final stage before they determined the persons who would be awarded the scholarship. The date was set, the venue was to be Skype (couldn't fly to the UK for an interview) and I still had a plan and a positive attitude.

The day of the interview!

I woke up nervous, and had a few questions that I wanted to ask the interviewers running through my mind, so I wrote them down. I did not think I needed to prepare for questions like: What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Rather, I was more prepared for: Why do you want to complete a PhD? Why did you choose your particular area of interest?  Why did you choose this university? What do you have to offer?

I had practiced them on my own, I had practiced with a friend. I had done them in point form, in long form. I dreamt about them. I was ready!

 

I had a plan and a positive attitude.

I got dressed, went for my favourite comfort food breakfast at the time (a ham and cheese croissant and a lemonade) and drove down to campus two hours before the interview was scheduled to start. I got to the office and set up my netbook which was to be for Skype only; hooked it up to the internet and turned on my office PC. The office PC was for the documents I had sent in with my application: CV, PhD proposal and the like. I also had my notebook with the questions I wanted to ask.  I opened all of my documents, laid out the notebook and decided to have a trial run. Oops, I forgot to mention; I also had my cell phone with Skype already loaded as a back up.

I started my trial run and had a minor hitch. The Skype would not work on the netbook. It did however, very conveniently, tell me why it wouldn't work and so, I fixed that problem. It still wouldn't work, so I tried something else and I kept trying until I realised the netbook and Skype just were not going to work.

So not panicking yet, I tried the cell phone (it was there for back up) and that wouldn't work either. I moved out of the office and I tried it somewhere else. I did everything I could think of and none of these two tools would work. 

The time for the interview just seemed to be getting nearer and nearer and I was panicking a little now. I decided to call and let the interviewers know that I would be unable to do a video call, because of technical difficulties, but I would be able to do a voice interview. The call was not answered, so I sent a Skype message. Having done that, and now satisfied that I had tried everything possible, I sat and mentally prepared for a voice call. It was now only a few minutes before the scheduled start and I needed to be calm to do a good job.

The electricity went off! OMG!!!!!!

I will not sugar coat it. I was in full panic mode now but I wanted this scholarship and I was going to do this interview. So I called a friend and we hatched a hasty plan for me to drive to their office to do the interview on a borrowed computer .  

I won't go into details of the driving over sidewalks that would make this story too dramatic and you would begin to think I was exaggerating.

I arrived at my friend's office and did not have time for an elaborate setup. I just signed into Skype, (by this time I had missed 4 Skype calls on the phone that would not work) found the headphone jack, (after several minutes and worry) and started.

To this day I cannot tell you what I said in this interview. I have no recollection of the next 11 minutes but I can tell you I called my mother crying like a baby afterwards because there was no way in my mind that I could have been successful.

I decided the following morning that despite my terrible interview, and since I had no idea if I had apologised for the late start or explained why, I should send the interviewers a thank you email and explanation. So, I did. I also started looking for other opportunities because despite this setback I would get my PhD.

Three days later when I received an email saying that I was successful, and  "congratulations on your excellent application and performance in the interview" I was again in tears. I thanked God, I called my mum, I called my friends and I continued to cry but I also now had a new plan and an even more positive attitude.

My opinion after meditation

There is no way that I could have performed in that interview if I was not prepared, if I did not know my material and if I was not passionate about what I wanted and why.

The line from the song that comes to mind is: nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could.

...What's next?