The Interview

I had my interview for med school last week - thank god that's over!! I would have posted about it much sooner, but there is currently no internet access at our house, as we need a new router, so I've had to wait until I had a spare moment at work to write about it.

I spent the days leading up to the interview getting more and more anxious. I was haunted by the feeling that I really should be doing more to prepare, but WHAT? What more could I do? I'd thought about answers to all of the questions, had practiced over and over again, had chosen my outfit and thought about how to present myself on the day - but in the end, I can never actually re-create an interview at home, so no matter how much preparation I'd done, I still felt unprepared. I feel sorry for the boy; the poor thing had to put up with all of my stress! I'm very lucky to have someone so patient around.

I managed to work myself up into such a state as we arrived at the interview venue (the boy played chauffeur for the afternoon) that I would have honestly preferred to just sit in the car and cry rather than get out and knock the interviewers' socks off. But I took a few minutes to compose myself, and then headed into the waiting room. From that point, I calmed down immensely. I guess you could call it 'entering the zone' or something...

I was summoned to the interview room. There was one male and one female interviewer, both doctors. They didn't elaborate as to their area of specialisation. They started off by asking general questions about myself, such as what are my hobbies, when have I been in a leadership role, why do I want to be a doctor, etc, etc. They were quite cordial (I wouldn't go so far as to say 'friendly'), and I found it easy as the interview progressed to open up and answer their questions. By the time we reached the next section of the interview, I was feeling quite calm and confident.

The interviewers then read a short story to me, and asked me to summarise the story back to them, identifying the key issues. I also answered some further questions about the story. Piece of cake, bring it on! Then I was asked to explain a scientific term (virus) in layman's terms. Hmmm, this was a little more difficult. I took a moment to think, and then began a rather fumbly response. I think I rambled a lot on this one, but eventually got there in the end, and at least didn't say anything that was incorrect. Then I explained a social science term (autonomy) and did MUCH better - after giving a basic outline of what the term means, I used autonomy in the women's movement as an example. The female doctor clearly loved that, giving me a big smile and nod. This was the only time during the entire interview that I got any indication of how I was going.

After this came the debate. Oh dear. This was certainly NOT my strong point. The topic I debated was "That assisted reproductive technologies should be restricted to married heterosexual couples." Of course, I argued against this, stating that, "I think it's wrong to discriminate against homosexuals or any other queer people."

Oh. My. God. I just said the word queer. To the interviewers. Who are in their fifties (at least) and most likely quite conservative. I don't think they'll have the same understanding of the term as I do! Now I've blown it!

All I can say is, my confidence really suffered a battering at that point, and it all went downhill from there. I did my best, but I was certainly not strong at rebutting their arguments against me.

There were a few more general questions after that (what are your strengths? weaknesses? how will you support yourself while studying?), and while I think I answered them alright, I was worried that I'd already blown it.

The entire interview took about 40 minutes. I kept my cool as I left the building, and then got in the car and let out all of my stress and frustration with a great big cry! I can tell you, that sure felt good. As the days go by, I feel better and better about it - maybe I did make a mistake, but hopefully everyone is allowed a mistake or two? I also got an excellent GAMSAT score, so before the interview was in the top cohort of applicants. And I tried my best - there's no such thing as a perfect response, I did the best I could and if that's not good enough, I guess it's just not meant to be this year. But that won't stop me trying again next year!

So for now, no more worrying about what I could have or should have said - I'm just settling in for the long wait til December (I know! December?!) when offers come out...