Books to read before interview?

[rainbow_mandi]

Hiya,
When I was at MedLink, one of the admissions tutors there said that you could impress an interviewer by having read certain books. The two he mentioned were 'Cancer Ward' by Aleksandr Solhenitsyn and 'The Yellow Wallpaper' by Charlotte Perkins Gliman. I've read Cancer Ward, and am on the hunt for a copy of The Yellow Wallpaper, but I wondered if anyone was aware of any other books which could 'impress'. (I am probebly going to mention reading as a hobby in my personal statement, and so might get asked what I've recently read.)
Thankyou
Mandi
P.S. Sorry if someones asked this before, but I did a search and couldn't find any similar threads.

[S Knights]

Hmmm... I must admit I'm a bit dubious about this strategy - I professed a great love of books in my PS, and I've never heard of the two you mention!
Read whatever you like - if you say you enjoy reading they won't be utterly devastated if you haven't read War and Peace or the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire etc .

If I was interviewing you I would be quite impressed if you told me you had researched the Battle of Berlin in depth... but that could just be because I am interested in the history of that era (point is all of the interviewers will have different opinions as to what constitutes an "impressive book").

[Mmmm...]

No no no. Don't do things because you think they will 'impress.' Do things because you genuinely enjoy doing them and because YOU want to gain a greater understanding about something you like etc. etc.

If you start spouting stuff about cancer you've read in a book making out that you find it 'fascinating' etc. and the doctor sitting opposite you is an oncologist of some kind... they could start firing questions at you (seeing as you are sooooo fascinated etc)- which you probably wouldn't be able to answer and hence, who looks like the twat?!

Just reading is a good start Read about anything you want. Don't change your reading habits just because you've got an interview coming up (unless books about cancer ARE what you normally read...). I'm sure it would be much more interesting for the interviewers to be told about a book that they have never heard about, rather than a weird sciencey one.

:mrgreen:

[rainbow_mandi]

Lol!
Well I love reading anyway, and am reading anything I can get my hands on which has a remote medical link at the moment just because I want to. So I thought as I'd be reading loads anyway, it couldn't harm to try a few books that interviewers would like?
Oh, and Cancer Ward has very little to do with cancer, and much more to do with Russain Politics under Stalin's rule! (It won the writer the Nobel Prize for literature aswell!)

[S Knights]

I can suggest Samuel Shem's work, very interesting read.

[Mmmm...]

Oh, but you if you really wanted to impress (and actually be bothered), you could read the three 'great' epics of all time. Once you read these, there is no need to read any other epic:

The Iliad,
The Odyssey and
The Aeneid.

The Odyssey is quite cool really (Odysseus is such a (as they say in some areas) dude).
The Aeneid is pants (in my opinion). Aeneas is a twat.
And the Iliad contains (gosh, have had to amend this because have realised that i am actually quite thick and wrote down the wrong hero :roll: ) Achilles. That's the one. Yes, that's right- Achilles heel. He was a greeaatttttt hero- one of the best and jolly nice too. Oh, and there's also the other (slightly less impressive) hero: Agamemnon (who is a bit of a twat, tbh). And a small mention of Odysseus- yes, who is THE hero of The Odyssey as mentioned above.

At my interviews, they've always asked and always nodded along whilst I've recounted the books i've had to read. Mind you, they nod and they've probably never heard nor read them :roll: :wink: Is v. cool

[mapaneba]

I would recommend Cancer Ward anyway. As far as medicine is concerned I would have thought Middlemarch a good book to read.

[Jake]

As far as medicine is concerned I would have thought Middlemarch a good book to read.

:shock: I really did try with that book, sadly I just couldn't cope.

Mmmm... I really do love you posts - they always cheer me up when I read them

[sarap]

I professed a great love of books in my PS, and I've never heard of the two you mention!

Really?? :shock: I thought everyone had heard of The Yellow Wallpaper? - Or maybe because I've got feminist tutors! :lol:

[S Knights]

Just found a synopsis about it - doesn't seem like the sort of thing I would pick off a bookshelf...