Thought Picnic: My Interview Weaknesses

Interviews are not the same

We all interview in very different ways depending on the situation, the circumstance and the opportunity. In my case, interviews have straddled the spectrum of a grilling interrogation to a friendly discussion sometimes without a definitive inkling as to whether I will be considered suitable for the role or not.

It is not easy to determine what to expect at an interview and when it is not face-to-face, it is more difficult to project oneself as well especially where a question presents a difficulty in coming up with clear answers.

My lacking in ability

Whilst I am fine with telephone interviews, I will only attend a Skype interview without the video element, though I can remember about 14 years ago where I attended an interview at a recruitment agent’s office, it was recorded on video and sent to panel working for the employers where current employees voted on who they liked and that determined eligibility.

Recently, I have noticed that I am not that good at core technical narratives, much as I have been doing what I do for over a decade, I fully understand the workings and the innards but the hypothetical scenarios I get given at interview leave me wanting for expression and jargon, I am almost tongue-tied.

Planning ahead of typical troubles

Another disadvantage I seem to have had comes from not experiencing some of the issues that come up in questions I have to answer, it was interesting when the interviewer said on reflection that I probably take time to plan out and capture as much as I can of the situation before I design and implement solutions – I end up with fewer management and critical issues and by reason of that, I am probably not as tested as those who have to fight fires daily because of unforeseen issues and much else.

Where one is engaged to design from scratch, one is at an advantage but in situations where one is to maintain an existing but flawed deployment solution change might be difficult to instigate and implement for more political than technical reasons.

Swotting to swat the quiz

I find I still have to learn to exude to the level that I know to do in a practical setting; reading gives words to the actions I have literally learnt to perfect, creating scenarios and painstakingly working through each to some working conclusion creates consistent workflow processes that I hope I will find words to express when asked at interview.

Most pertinently, I rarely attempt to reinvent the wheel, so many have travelled the roads I travel and have documented hard-won lessons that come in handy every time, I am grateful to them because it usually means, if I know what to look for, I will find a clue, a pointer, a thinking, a process, an implementation or a solution that I can adapt and use to perfect the imperfect situation I am facing.

Books still matter

Sometimes, that is simply what an expert is, not the person who can give a good talk but the person who understands the general problem and knows how to seek out solutions that work.

Meanwhile, back to the books, there is much theory to refresh until it becomes the Shibboleth of interview success.

Opinion: Lord Macauley did not address the British Parliament in 1835

Shared on Facebook

A few hours ago, I came upon a picture taken of a supposed speech made to the British Parliament on Facebook and the healthy sceptic that I am had to review the content to determine if this was true or not.

A quick search, though inconclusive proved my doubts and though I left a comment on the feature, soon afterwards the posting was removed in its entirety along with all the opinions expressed about it.

My control

That is probably what I fear the most about participating in the many forums on the Internet outside my control, the sudden disappearance of an opinion, a view or a comment so succinctly made at a moment in time representing my contemporaneous thinking which I may never be able to reproduce if it is lost.

This informs the reason why I mainly stick to writing on my blog where my views cannot be tampered with by editors or syndicators – my cubicle serves its purpose well.

The speech

“I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in the country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.” [Wikipedia]

Intent unexpressed

Now, with regards to the picture above and the words transcribed there is probable cause to believe that there was intent by the British Empire as it spread its tentacles in the 19^th Century; I had my doubts that they were expressed as such, especially in Parliament.

Sensational and inflammatory as it definitely is, it can be used to whip up nationalist fervour and jingoism for the ways in which colonialism and imperialism raped the colonies but if we are historically incorrect in attempting to harness a sentiment for polemics and so political gain, eventually the truth of such manipulation will be revealed, but long after the mob has been excited to wreak havoc on our peace.

Quite improbable

Now, this speech was said to have been made by Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay on the 2^nd of February 1835 to the British Parliament. This would have been difficult, if he left for India in 1834 and returned in 1838 serving on the Supreme Council of India.

The fastest ships of that time managed 5 to 6 knots and this was before the time of the Clippers, Suez Canal did not open until 1869, so with a basic calculation of London to Bombay via Cape Town, a distance of 10,721 nautical miles with no days spent at port, an average one-way trip to India will take just over 74 days. [Using Sea Distances – Voyage Calculator]

This was not a journey to be taken lightly if you were based in India in the 19^th Century; it is quite unlikely that T. B. Macaulay made a speech to the British Parliament in 1935.

Minutes

Then one might ask how this got attributed to him. He did take minutes on the 2^nd of February 1835 on the issue of Indian Education but those minutes do not contain the said words, it is suggested that the words might well have been an embellished paraphrase of a number of opinions that the man might have paraphrased.

Apparently, the East India Company had been given the monopoly to trade with India and was instructed by the British Parliament to spend 100,000 Rupees on promoting the education of Indian natives. [Source - Doc]

“The Company officials were divided on the kind of education to be promoted – will it be the indigenous system of education, or a new education system patterned along the British system of education.” The context of T. B. Macaulay’s minutes a subject of the English Education Act of 1835 were implemented in India in 1854 was advocating the promotion of European style education over the indigenous system.

The reprehensible thinking of those times

There are other words that are apparently attributed to Lord Macaulay and this follows the thinking of colonialists of that time; on page 325 in Essays, Critical and Miscellaneous, by Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron Macaulay, we find the paragraph below as also corroborated in Callaloo Nation, by Aisha Khan.

“There never, perhaps, existed a people so thoroughly fitted by nature and by habit for a foreign yoke.”

This reads no different in context and understanding that Lord Lugard proffered of Africans in his book, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa in 1922, where he said, “In character and temperament, the typical African of this race-type is a happy, thriftless, excitable person; lacking in self control, discipline, and foresight ...” I covered this in my Apes Obey Series.

Debunk the fallacies, always

I expect the picture to go viral as it gets shared and commented on by readers on Facebook, Twitter and other Social Media forums, it might even catch the eye of some newspapers on its way to becoming a meme, many not bothering to verify the information and ascertain its provenance, veracity and correctness with historical fact.

As to the exact words spoken or written by Baron Macaulay, many of which might be in dispute, one can only end on the damning excoriation of taking things at face value exemplified in these words authored by someone who did not sign their contributions to this debate. “Available in the archives to genuine researchers. Not for followers of the ‘If it cannot be Googled it did not happen’ doctrine.” I hear you.

Private universities in Nigeria: Where are the ‘big’ men? - A Rejoinder on the Moral Element

I originally published this on NigeriansTalk.

A rejoinder is necessary

I have not written for NigeriansTalk in quite a while but after reading Salisu Suleiman’s piece titled Private universities in Nigeria: Where are the ‘big’ men? I could not resist the need to comment on a particular part of his article.

By the time I finished writing my comment, I realised I might well have broken an unwritten rule of concision and brevity required of comments that I decided it was best published as a rejoinder-blog to the original article as appears below.

Dear Salisu,

I very well agree with the main drift of this article which is the need to establish more universities, hopefully of academic excellence and qualitative progressive education with far-reaching benefits or endow existing ones to spread opportunity and access in Nigeria.

However, when I got to the part I highlight below, I do have misgivings I must voice.

“Also, many families have found to their cost that sending children to schools abroad may not necessarily produce the better students in terms of qualification or moral development – many students sent abroad ended up victims of alcoholism or drug addiction. Having private universities here will help parents monitor their children’s development in person, not through vague progress reports from foreign schools.”

This is a generalisation too expressive in stereotype that needs to be challenged. The issue of moral development when put in the context of being at home or abroad is simplistic at best. One had to take exception to this characterisation of foreign academic pursuits that suggests waste, loss and reckless abandon.

Much as many students including Nigerians can be given to social vices abroad, it smacks of cant if that is not juxtaposed with even more serious issues of cultism, abuse of females especially, the shirking of responsibility by academia in terms of incessant strikes, the absence of accountability of authorities for overreach and much else in Nigeria - you castigate serious students abroad too harshly.

The other issue of moral development you allude to in monitoring students is exemplified in the egregious abuse of authority and megalomaniac atrocity accompanied with reprehensible punishments as meted out most publicly by Covenant University and others in that ilk.

These private universities, rather than stimulate development of the mind and the person, tend to diminish the personality and esteem of young adults, creating a glorified secondary school atmosphere of non-inquisitive, non-questioning pliant drones of rote-learning and cloned attitudes of closed-minded conformity.

I say, let universities be mainly institutions of learning, expression and progressive development but leave the moral upbringing to parenthood, community and society at large - the downward trend of converting private universities into fiefdoms and pseudo-borstal homes of presumed innocence in pursuit of academic achievable should be not be encouraged.

It is of the utmost importance that we properly define the purpose of universities and the role of society at large without conflating issues; good moral conduct is generally expected of people in university but morality, no matter how broadly defined and presumed to be essential to our sometimes myopic outlook to life should not suddenly become part of the credit-scoring system of academic attainment.