Thank you for the response. And very belated congratulations on your considerable achievement.
Regards,
Shodan
Most people I’ve met, and it also applies to me, read about Rhodes before they got the scholarship, either before submitting the application to know what they’re in for, or as a preparation for the interview. The opinions on Cecil in the community (and that includes, as far as I can tell, both the personal opinions of most scholars and the institutional position of the trust) are somewhat ambivalent. On the one hand he is held in high esteem as the “Founder”, with portraits of him hanging at Rhodes House where the trust is headquartered, and he is formally toasted at the annual ball. On the other hand, there is a great deal of awareness that his political views and methods were, let’s call it, questionable from today’s point if view. I think the approach is sort of a compromise where the Rhodes Trust does not denounce its past and the values its founder stood for, but attempts to reinterpret them in a modern way. For instance, the initial aim of promoting imperialism by bringing students from the colonies to Britain is reinterpreted as promoting international understanding and cosmopolitanism among the countries involved. This is particularly true for the relationship to Southern Africa, and there is close cooperation with the Nelson Mandela Foundation, for instance a scholarship programme run by both institutions jointly. Nonetheless, even though debate about the historic role of Cecil Rhodes is not quelled, and people are very much aware of the issue, there is a general discouragement on the trust’s part not to denounce Rhodes since people are, after all, taking his money.
Not that I should tell you where to visit… but if you ever head back, visit the Mansions at Newport? I think you’d like them. But don’t be rushed… take your time. Inside any one of them, wherever you rest your eyes is an incredible story.
Many of the works of art are from materials no longer in existence to be quarried today.
One mansion in particular possesses and exhibits certain items actively listed as stolen national treasures from Versailles and The Winter Palace. :rolleyes:
There were, I’d say, three types of questions. Some of them related to the academic discipline peope study, in my case, law. In my interview, that was the opening question - a member of the selection committee who was himself a law professor (they try to achieve a balanced representation of the various academic disciplines on the committees) wanted to about issues that I had studied recently in my exam revision. I think that was meant both as an icebreaker by starting with a question anybody could say something about, and to see how comfortable and familiar you are with your own academic discipline. Later on, however, I was meant to explain the legal problems involved and how to solve it; that took the form of an oral examination that you’d find at university.
Then there were the questions that meant to check if information I had given in my application and CV was bogus, or if there was something to it. Since I knew, for instance, that some sort of artistic interest always looks good, I had stated in my application that I had an interest in architecture. A few questions aimed at that. I was, for instance, asked to say something about the architectural style of the historic building in which the interview was taking place, in particular classifying the columns of the hall. Similarly, since I had stated an interest in economics and the interview took place shortly after the subprime mortgage bubble burst in late 2007, I was asked to comment about these events and what central banks could or should do. I guess they were not so much interested in examining me on these questions, they just wanted to know whether there was some substance to the statements I had made in my application or whether I was just faking it.
Then there were questions which were more geared towards motivation and personality. You’d be asked, for instance, to comment why, of all the things you could do, you applied specifically for Rhodes and Oxford. These questions were rather similar to what a lot of interviewers in university admissions or job interviews would ask. Again, it was not so much about examining you on right-or-wrong questions (that was more the focus of the first type of questions geared towards your academic background), it was to find out about your personality beyond academia, and also based on statements made in the application. In my case, for instance, I had been active in a political party at my university and stated so in the application and letter f motivation, so I was asked about the values which this party represented and why I shared them.
The whole setting was a bit uneasy at first, but then got more comfortable. The interview took place in a grand hall in a historic building, and there was a big table where the committee members - I think there were eight of them - were sitting along one side and I was sitting on the other. At first, that tends to intimidate people, and I think that’s why the use nice icebreaker questions first. The interview took about half an hour, and they interviewed each candidate - altogether there were ten of them - individually all day long. After the last candidate, there was a long break for committee deliberations, and the selection was announced immediately afterwards, on the same day, to all interviewees.
American here. Yes, one generally speaks of “majoring” in a subject with respect to undergraduate studies, i.e. associate’s and bachelor’s degrees. These degrees typically have a significant general education (“GenEd”) component that includes a broad but shallow examination of a wide range of fields of study combined with a significantly deeper penetration into one’s “major” area. For example, someone “majoring” in English might take two years of French, one year of Chemistry, one year of Psychology, one year of History, a course in Religion, a course in Computer Science, a Physical Education (Gym) class, and an Art class. The rest of their schooling would be English classes (composition, literature, poetry, etc.). For my bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, I did, among other things, a year of Psychology, a year (two semesters) of Chemistry, two years (four semesters) of English, two years of Spanish, and a bunch of other stuff.
Graduate degrees, on the other hand, are generally narrowly focused on one subject area. It isn’t really right to call that area a “major” because you don’t really study much but your subject area. E.g. a master’s degree in History consists of pretty much just History studies with only minor forays outside for supporting knowledge. One of the reasons why you generally need a bachelor’s degree before going to grad school is that you need a firm foundation in a broad range of academic skills. Grad school doesn’t give you that - undergrad does.
When I was younger I thought the term was ‘Rogue Scholar’. I didn’t know what it was, but figured it may have had something to do with outdoorsmanship. Has that ever been a misconception you’ve run into?
Ah, I see, thanks for the explanation. In that sense, there is no concept of a “major” at Oxford (or, for that matter, anywhere in the UK). There are, of course, degrees where the range of topics covered is, by necessity, broader (such as the undergraduate degree in PPE, for instance), but there is to my knowledge no programme where several disciplines from otherwise unrelated areas are brought together in the way an American major would.
Another important difference to the American system is the fact that disciplines like law and medicine can be studied straightaway without a previous bachelor’s degree.
Why does my cat’s breath smell like cat food?
Well, the greatest misconception that I’ve run into on a more regular basis was that nobody knows about the German Rhodes scholarships, both in Germany (where it doesn’t have the century-long tradition that it has elsewhere, having been suspended repeatedly in the 20th century for obvious political reasons) nor at Oxford, where many people otherwise familiar with the community aren’t aware that there are also scholars from Germany. It’s a niche, and we are the only scholars from a non-English-speaking country (simply because Cecil mentioned us in his will), but we’re there.