Hi there, my name's Areeg
I study Engineering and I'm from
a tiny town in Kenya called Eldoret
My name is Akil and
I study Engineering
I'm Drew, I'm from South
London and I study Law
I'm Finn from Scotland
and I study History
And I'm Finn from England
I study Energy and
Sustainability Engineering
I was the first person in my school
in like 10 years to go to Cambridge
so we had no idea at my
school what I was doing
So I was so nervous that I was shaking
and I don't think the interviewer had seen
And I took his calculator and I
was doing it for all of the basic sums
just doing like, I think I did
something like 6 + 7 on it
He said to me: "Do you
need a calculator for this?"
At which point I didn't know
what to say so I just said "yes"
Erm... then there was a bit of an awkward
silence and I sort of said I'm nervous
And I think after that it got a little bit,
well I felt a bit better, I think he
was fine with it the whole time
They asked me a question and I
immediately thought of the answer
which was the word circumference
but I decided that for some
reason this was Cambridge
and the word circumference
was too simple and
I needed to think of something
smarter or more complicated
so I didn't say anything, I
kind of just stayed quiet
They eventually said that: "Oh actually, the answer we were looking for was the word circumference"
And I just felt like I should have
actually said what I was thinking
rather than trying to
stay quiet and be smart
They asked me a question and as I was responding
my brain just went blank just completely
I had to say: "Oh I'm so sorry
like I just had a brain blank"
And they said: "That's fine, just sit until you
remember what it is you wanted to say"
And I think we sat there for
about two minutes just in silence
as I was trying to remember
and have words come back to me
But then after that it was
fine and I guess it helped
make it more of a comfortable
relaxed environment
because I knew that if I could
make silence feel comfortable
slightly comfortable and then the rest
of the interview couldn't go so bad
So at one point I started
arguing with the interviewer
which was a tactic that I later found
out isn't exactly frowned upon
but at the time I was just really annoyed
because I said something that was a
bit opinionated about British politics
and the interviewer just
reworded what I said completely
I was like: "I didn't say that! What I said
was this, that is not the same thing!"
And yeah at the time I was like I
have completely screwed it up
but in retrospect, maybe
not the worst idea!
I couldn't integrate x squared over 2
which I had done in like Year 11
So the interviewer was like:
"Breathe, calm down, I'm sure you can do
this because you've done similar stuff."
And I was like:
"Oh! Yeah! Yeah, that!"
So that went well!
So I think it's quite normal to not even be able to
do the basic things that you do know and it's fine
My thoughts were just
to try and be myself
which is what everybody says
but if you're more comfortable
then you're just gonna do better
It's sort of designed to make you think about
things that you haven't encountered before
Put your thoughts aloud
they can work with you if you say something
because then they can see how you're thinking
and where you're going wrong and help
lead you towards the right answer
There was a lot of afterwards where I thought:
"Oh but what happens if I'd said this or did
I say this or should I have said that?"
I played the situation in my head so many
times I forgot how the interviews actually were
And then making my way down the stairs,
happy as you can be after an interview
I realised I'd forgotten my bag in the interview room
and the second person after
me had already gone in
so I had to knock on the interviewer's door
get my bag
and then have this really awkward
conversation where they looked at me like
you will not be coming to this University
and then yeah I left and
then two months later
did actually get in! So yeah
that was my interview!
Thanks for watching guys, if you
want to hear more interview stories
visit Inside Uni by clicking
the link in the description.
