Rejection isn't the end of the world

I’ve been helping out at interview days this year. Normally this is a task I avoid in the same way I avoid slapping my own balls with a wooden paddle – that is, by not agreeing to do it when I’m asked by my superiors (it happens more than you’d think). However, this year I am short on money and, like all people short on money, I am not averse to a little ball-slapping in return for cash.

Interview days at Imperial have all the atmosphere of a funeral, with worse quality food. The interviewers are miserable because they could be off somewhere writing down equations. The interviewees are miserable because they want to go to Cambridge instead. And I’m miserable because it’s a fucking Wednesday and I’m standing around in a gaudily-lit box of a room wondering what kind of catering department can do Hoi Sin duck wraps and falafel but somehow fail to do, say, cheese sandwiches. I mean I love duck, it’s just – cheese sandwiches, guys. How hard would that be?

It’s on days like this that I see evidence of everything that is wrong with how we treat sixth-formers, both as a university and a nation. It’s not just that we under-fund their education and then complain when they’re not up to scratch. It’s the sheer amount of pressure we pour on them – you’d think they had a life expectancy of about thirty years. They’re so focused on what this decision will mean for the rest of their life that they seem to forget just how much life they have left to live. I know people who have done three degrees and changed career four times. Yet people are captivated by the idea that if you don’t get into Imperial you might as well top yourself, because there’s no way in hell you’re going to leave Birmingham otherwise.

As much as I love Imperial, I feel it contributed about as much to my overall education as many other institutions would have done. People seem to think that enthusiastic, motivated and talented educators are only able to exist inside the walls of Cambridge, Oxford or Imperial, and that the atmospheric composition of places like Southampton or York or Edinburgh causes anyone with half a brain to asphyxiate. Merely thinking of entering a university that isn’t in the top ten of one league table or another causes your IQ to drop by eighty points.

As much as I love Imperial, I feel it contributed about as much to my overall education as many other institutions would have done

You know as well as I do that, while we’re blessed with some excellent people at Imperial and some good facilities, careers aren’t made or broken simply by the name on your degree (unless you’re in the proportion of Imperial’s population who want as much as possible for as little effort as can be gotten away with, in which case feel free to choke on your own tongue next time you’re knocking back vials of baby tears or whatever you do for fun). You’re the one responsible for securing your future, and that can be done almost anywhere if you’re willing to put forth the effort. That’s why it’s important that sixth-formers spend the time choosing their subject for university, rather than the institution. Talking to a lot of the interviewees, however, I’m left with a very different impression.

Maybe that’s alright, or unavoidable, or not anyone’s fault at all. I doubt it, somehow. Imperial’s past Rectors have often tried their best to elevate Imperial’s status, to make it equal to Oxford or Cambridge as if this will make it a better university simply because people think it is. The most interesting researchers I’ve met this year were working out of Essex, and they seemed perfectly content with their position in life. I imagine it rubs off on students as well.

We chuckle about how we overwork ourselves here, but it’s less funny to watch first-years weep into textbooks every May – and those are the ones who managed to get in. The sixth-formers that are dreading every morning’s post right now are honestly harming themselves by stressing over these interviews and decisions that they somehow perceive as major life choices.

Coming to Imperial might change your life, of course. But most likely you’ll still be the same person you were beforehand. If, like me, you’re working at an interview day this year, try to impress this on those who turn up – that while Imperial is a fine place to be, it’s not a magic bullet, and a rejection from us is not a curse on your every decision from hereon out.

It won’t make any difference, of course, because no-one is listening to you on interview day. But do it anyway. I’ll appreciate it.