Archive | September, 2010

Chinese Newspaper Article & My Thoughts on Interviews

Categories: Personal Development

The day the Toronto Star article came out, I got contacted by a reporter with a Chinese newspaper that read that article and were interested in doing a follow up story. The article came out yesterday, which you can find here. It was more focused on myself compared to the Star article, and I thought it came out pretty well.

Given some of the controversy of the first article, I thought it might be interesting to share my thoughts and reasons on why I decided to interview for this article, and my thoughts in general about interviewing. Before doing an interview, I think it’s always important to consider whether/how it can benefit you, how others will perceive it, and generally the implications of doing it. While you aren’t the one asking the questions, you are the one giving the answers – and you can choose which answers you want to give.

Clarification

Many people have seen the original article in the Star that I posted last time. As I mentioned in my last post, the whole monetary aspect wasn’t clear. For example, just yesterday I had a family friend who told me they read the article and thought I actually received $200,000 in the bank from scholarships, which as I explained, is way off from the truth.

And although this Chinese newspaper has nowhere near the circulation and audience that the Toronto Star does, I thought it would still be a good opportunity to clear up what I actually did receive in terms of scholarship money. I appreciate them being willing to do that with me. Hopefully, some of the people who read the Star article will read this one as well. Of course, there probably aren’t too many that will, but every little bit helps.

Promotion of Personal Interests

News is publicity. An interview is a good opportunity to publicize and provide exposure to things you have a vested interest in. Many of you know that SMARTS continues to be one of my most important projects, and we could always use the exposure. An interview like this was a good opportunity to mention that.

Sharing Ideas You Believe In

An interview is also a good opportunity to send a message you believe in and share it with others. An example of this is in the interview where I shared some of my views and thoughts on success and achieving goals – the same ideas I have written about here on this blog.

Some Interview Tips

I’d like to close this post by sharing some of the things I have learned throughout the few interviews I have done the past few years:

  • Don’t say anything you don’t want to be published. The fact is that anything you say is fair game for the writer to use. If you’re worried about something being published, don’t say it!
  • Realize that only parts of what you say will be used. What that means is, it is very easy for you to be quoted or written about out of context. Focus on saying things that will not be misinterpreted even if mentioned on their own.
  • Speaking clearly and concisely. If you’re going to be quoted, you can’t be explaining long paragraphs. Make sure to speak in a way that makes it easier for you to be quoted, by focusing on spelling out the main ideas clearly and simply.
  • Be upfront with the reporter about what you’re willing to talk about. You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t to. Clarify up front and at the beginning what you’re willing to speak about. Just give a “no comment” if there’s something you don’t want to discuss.

Anyways, that’s all for now. I hope you guys enjoy the article!

How To Get That A+ In Every Course

Categories: Academics

Shelly here. Hello medhopeful readers…! First of all, I apologize for not posting at all this summer. To make up for it, I promise to post regularly, starting now.

School has started up again, and seeing the first year medical students in our building definitely makes me feel like an old school veteran. Next year will be the start of clerkship for me and I am very excited to be out of the classroom. As this will be my last year in full-time classroom and lecture (hurray), I wanted to summarize a few lessons I’ve learnt through my many years of class, from high school to university to medical school. In this post, I will share with you a mish-mash of all the things that, I think, helped me get the 90+ (A+) in my courses. Hopefully everyone will gain at least something from reading this post and be able to use any of my strategies/tips to improve their grades, if that is what they wish to do.

First off, you might ask: in which courses did I get the A+, or more importantly, which ones did I fail to do so? The simple answer is that I was able to pull off the 90 throughout high school till now, with a few important exceptions such as grade 9 gym and art (I like to blame it on the facts that I’m short and artistically challenged, respectively, haha), three courses in the second term of third year (I think I was too busy with medical school interviews and burnt out from school), and more recently, a couple of tests in first year medical school (the material was too much for me to handle and I have to admit that didn’t allocate my time properly).

Time, time, time

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Toronto Star Article on Scholarships

Categories: Scholarships

A few weeks ago I was interviewed by a good friend of mine and fellow TD Scholar Jasmeet Sidhu for a piece she was writing about scholarships. The article just came out, and I think she did a really good job. Check it out:

‘Super candidates’ cash in on huge scholarships

My Comments:

Based on the comments available on the Toronto Star website and things I have heard from friends, it seems this article has stirred up a bit of controversy – and unfortunately, some of it based on a misunderstanding of some of the scholarship programs.

One misconception is based on the numbers thrown around in the article. The huge six figure scholarship amounts mentioned were what a student was offered in total from various universities and private organizations – this is very different from what a student actually received to put towards post-secondary education. It seems some readers think that there are students selfishly pocketing amounts that could buy a house. This doesn’t happen for a few reasons. One is that you can only go to one university, so any scholarships offered from other universities cannot be accepted. Furthermore, most of the major private scholarships (e.g. Loran, TD, etc.) have stipulations that restrict the total amount of scholarship money you can receive (because they also believe in making sure scholarship recipients only receive approximately what’s required to cover a university experience, and nothing more, so that other students can benefit from the funding available).

Since I am mentioned in the article, I might as well use myself as an example. The Star article correctly states that I was offered over $200,000 in scholarships from many different sources – TD, Millennium, and several major university scholarships. What did I actually receive? $52,500 in total, which was put towards my three years of undergrad studies at York for biology, and my first year of medical school (since the TD scholarship supports your first four years of undergraduate studies). Although the value of the TD scholarship is valued up to $60,000, I received a total of $47,500 from them because undergraduate science tuition is not as expensive as say engineering. I also accepted $5,000 total from other sources (TD has a restriction that you can accept up to $5,000 in scholarships from other sources). $52,500 is a very significant amount and I am very grateful for the generous support I have received from these scholarship programs and institutions.

There remains controversy over the different types of funding available. Some scholarships are based more on financial need. On the other end of the spectrum are purely merit based scholarships, which are the ones being mentioned in the article. There are also many in between that consider both financial need and merit.

The purpose of merit-based scholarship programs are to identify young people with certain traits, experiences and/or potential that these institutions/programs want to invest in. As an example, a large scholarship program like the TD Canada Trust Scholarship for Community Leadership wants to invest in young people who they feel will be able to better continue serving their community with less of a financial burden. You also have post-secondary institutions offering scholarships based on merit, whether it be application-based ones looking at an entire student profile or the entrance scholarships offered automatically based on academic merit (grades) – post-secondary institutions do so because they are a centres of academia, and want to attract certain students to their own institutions versus others. The fact is that the programs and institutions who offer merit-based funding do so for specific reasons they believe in and for reasons that they believe benefit their personal interests. A post-secondary institution isn’t going to suddenly stop offering scholarships and putting all of their funding into bursaries because then a lot of students they would like to attract will go to other institutions that make them better offers.

Like most systems, the post-secondary funding one is not perfect at all ends of the spectrum. There is limited funding, and the funding is allocated based on competing interests and imperfect information. For example, you can have students who are in financial need but can’t get it because their parents are well off but choose not to support them.

What should be done? It’s hard to say. But before coming to any conclusion, I think it’s important to recognize all perspectives in place and all the competing interests they come from.