“Concerning the Interview”

Mark Twain wrote an autobiography. But he requested a 100-year posthumous release. UC Berkley will soon publish his autobiography, along with many essays, including “Concerning the Interview.”

The interview is an important, whacky, at-times-stressful component of the MD-PhD application process. It is an opportunity for applicants to distinguish themselves (for better or worse) from a crowd of incredibly promising applicants. While Twain’s perspective as the interviewee is astronomically different than the prospective MD-PhD student’s perspective (try saying that ten times fast), his comments deserve some serious thought.

“The Interview was not a happy invention. It is perhaps the poorest of all ways of getting at what is in a man.”

Amen. On the interview day, schools like to lighten tone by saying, “Oh, the interview is a way for us to get to know you,” when in reality, the interview is an interaction that has been repeated over so many times (in past interviews or in front of the mirror or good friends) that it is essentially a rehearsed exercised: aka The Shpeel. I guess an interview is better than nothing. But I imagine there are moments when interviewees yield shadows of themselves in the wrong light (again for better or worse).

“You know by experience that there is no choice between these disasters. No matter which he puts in, you will see at a glance that it would have been better if he had put in the other: not that the other would have been better than this, but merely that it wouldn't have been this; and any change must be, and would be, an improvement, though in reality you know very well it wouldn't. I may not make myself clear: if that is so, then I have made myself clear--a thing which could not be done except by not making myself clear, since what I am trying to show is what you feel at such a time, not what you think--for you don't think; it is not an intellectual operation; it is only a going around in a confused circle with your head off. You only wish in a dumb way that you hadn't done it, though really you don't know which it is you wish you hadn't done, and moreover you don't care: that is not the point; you simply wish you hadn't done it, whichever it is; done what, is a matter of minor importance and hasn't anything to do with the case. You get at what I mean? You have felt that way?”

Give this some time. The first time I read it, I scratched my head. I’ve read it a few more times, and I’m not sure whether I really understand it. Perhaps that is the point (read: “it is not an intellectual operation”), and I’m empathizing with the experience, which I imagine is more generalizable, beyond the scope of just an interview. I personally found that the application process had me “going around in a confused circle with your head off,” especially when I thought too hard about questions that are unanswerable but unavoidable on ye-good-olde interview trail. The most blaring example was “Why MD-PhD?” I had answers to questions like this. They were tailored to fit my portfolio. But the deeper questions found ways to pop up. What did I do? Acknowledge them, and let them be. As if they were going anywhere. Hehe. And this abstraction segues into the last quotation that I will torture you with:

“Yes, you are afraid of the interviewer, and that is not an inspiration. You close your shell; you put yourself on your guard; you try to be colorless; you try to be crafty, and talk all around a matter without saying anything: and when you see it in print, it makes you sick to see how well you succeeded.”

(N.B. that I was not sick with success, unlike Mark Twain; but his zinger was too good to exclude.)

Now read the first quotation I provided. I’m not trying to be a Debbie Downer; I’m not trying to be jaded or pessimistic; but maybe these characteristics are seeping through my attempts at realism. And that reality also includes the many fun moments of the interview trail, like eating good food with the new friends and colleagues I met in the big or small city that I had never been to before. Ye-good-olde interview trail is an experience. “You get at what I mean?”