GETTING INTO SCHOOL

The application procedure here for getting into school is quite long-winded. I was fortunate enough to have a contact who kept pestering the clerical office to process my application as soon as possible. The form was some 6 page headache, which asked all sorts of questions like where my father got his degree from!

Luckily, my interview was arranged for a week later. On the phone, they told me not to bring a translator as there would be someone there to translate. I would advise anyone going through the application process to ignore this and take a translator. When I arrived, it took my half an hour to find the woman’s office as it had recently moved and everyone I asked kept directing me to the old office! So i got a grand tour of the university! Finally, I ended up in the Farsi department, where the head of Farsi called out to a fellow British student and told her to take me to Khanum Yusufi’s office. Not surprisingly, there was no translator available. So I had to wait over an hour for them to run around trying to find another student who didn’t have a class to translate. The pants thing was that the student who they found had been free the whole morning, so instead of sendin her over straight away, they told her to go over at 11, even though Khanum Yusufi was free. Five minutes before the translator arrived, another couple of students arrived, so I had to wait another half an hour.

As we sat down at Khanum Yusufi’s desk ready to start, the woman at the desk behind her said “Khanum Farzaneh ney aamad?” meaning “hasn’t Mrs Farzana arrived?” Had it not been my entrance interview, I would have turned around and slapped her. I had been there from 9.20 in the morning and it was now 11.45!!!

So, the interview starts. Khanum Yusufi was slightly more concerned about her new mp3 player than my interview and wanted the translator to translate the instructions for her! So they asked me the usual questions like:

*Why did you come to Iran?

*Why do you want to come to this school and not another school?

*What my parents do

*How I will cope with studies and housework

*Extra curricular activites (e.g. Teaching at Hujjat Workshop)

So those were the kinds of questions I was expecting. Then she went on....

*What are my opinions on Imam Mahdi? Is he coming or not? What do the people of England think about Imam Mahdi? (like I’m supposed to know ?)

*If I was president of a country (e.g. Tanzania), what would I do? (I was really not expecting this, so I hesitated while I thought of a sensible answer. The 2^nd interviewer asked me if I was hesitating because I didn’t think a woman was capable of such a task!)

*What are the problems faced by Muslims in England? What are the solutions?

*She then asked me if i had heard a certain piece of news that had happened in the last couple of days. I hadn’t heard of it, so I told her that (A) I don’t have a TV and (B) even if i had a TV, the news is in Farsi, so I can’t understand it.

*She then asked me about political interests, to which I replied that I prefer to concentrate on personal development. You’re probably thinking that this is a cop-out, but I didn’t think it was any of her business!

*She asked me if I had any questions (not specifying if it was religious questions or questions about the university). Since I’ve spent most of my time here bored and at home, I asked her how long it would be before I can start! Khanum Yusufi then went on about her mp3 player for 5 mins before she came back to me and asked me that if I went to see a religious scholar, what would I ask them. The recycled some of the questions that the camp kids had asked the scholars when they were here 2 months ago!

*As she was completing the final bits of paperwork, she rejected my passport photos and told me to bring more. I’m still not sure why. Luckily, I had some with me (you need like a million passport photos here). The ones I had sent with the application had me wearing a printed scarf, while the ones I gave her had me in a black scarf! Someone told me afterwards that a friend of theirs had their application rejected as he was wearing a tie in his pictures!

So in short, if your applying to an Iranian university, be prepared for a long wait and take a translator with you! I’m told that my experience has been short and relatively pain-free (even though it didn’t feel like it!)

So, I’m due to start school tomorrow (Sat 11^th Oct), but before they let me into the Farsi class, I have to read a page of Qur’an. (I guess to make sure that I haven’t lied on the form)

The next step is to figure out the bus service that will take me every day! I’m sure that will be another drama....