To briefly introduce myself - I am Mridul and a current MBA student at HKUST. I completely respect your opinion and sorry to hear that you had an unpleasant experience. I do not know (and do not wish to know) who interviewed you but being termed 'racist' in a public forum is probably something I would want to contest. From your experience, I do not see the 'racist' angle. I can say one thing - I interview candidates myself and know all the interviewers personally and can assure you that we take pride in diversity and respect each other at every level. This extremity is hard to digest for me personally.
Barring that, based on what your have mentioned, I agree that your experience was not a pleasant one and was found to ruffle some feathers. I would not want to be in your shoes myself. I can assure you and others that HKUST does not stand for this or represent this culture in any way.
rbhasin11 wrote:
I just had the first interview with a current student. The conversation was very interactive and was mostly about knowing me as a person. It went for about 40mins, and I asked her a lot of questions, all of which were answered to my satisfaction.
I have the 2nd interview with the Adcom on 7th Feb.
You are lucky. My interview today went horribly. The interviewer was not only egoistic but also racist (both I and him are Indians). The whole point of this conversation he told me at the start of the interview was to gauge me as a potential classmate. Unfortunately, he completely forgot that I would also be doing the same. Sample this: the interview scheduled for 2.30 pm started at 2.45 without much ado from his side, he stopped the interview in between to take a personal call, and I kid you not send a chat reply. Throughout the interview, his intention was only somehow to show the flaw in my reasoning and thinking. If you think his intention was to grill me, then that was also not the case because, after my response, he would give his views and move on to the next question without allowing me to revert. He was extremely condescending about the companies I have worked in as he had no idea about their workings. When I explained about the niche products these companies had developed and their revenues streams, his response was "huh..ok". I am not kidding; this was happening in my MBA interview, I simply could not believe it and was left flabbergasted. I somehow kept my composure and at the end came the time for me to ask questions. I asked him about his experience so far at hkust, and he answered this query for a total of 12 mins without giving me the chance to intervene. These 12 mins covered such unnecessary sub-topics as how people in his old company could not believe that he went for an MBA because he was earning big time. Also included were topics like how European students enjoy their weekends partying and he did not approve their behaviour. Also, his feeling about the Indian batchmates was that he just could not believe that those people were Indians because of their behaviour and so on. At this point, if you are thinking huh??, then just imagine my state of mind when I was going through one of the most important interviews of my life. To keep this message short, I am going to skip talking about his opinions on my goals and the FT ranking of HKUST!
The interview went on for 47 mins, and at the end of it, I was left thinking whether I should just withdraw my application before the next interview on the 6th of Feb. I am not exaggerating; it was a horrendous experience. The interviewer is the vice president of a prestigious club at HKUST, and if he represents the students there, I am wondering if I should even consider joining such an institution.
Do not get me wrong. I am no superstar candidate who the colleges are lining up to take in and in fact, have no offer on my plate currently, but still I am seriously considering withdrawing my application. It pains that this stupidity had to happen at such an important institution as HKUST.
07 Feb 2017, 12:02
)!
close
