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XLRI BM Interview 2019 was my favorite interview experience because of the level of sarcasm of the professors!!!ProfileGeneral, Humanities (Psychology Hons), FresherWAT and GD TopicAbortion should be banned. Even a mother has no right to kill her child.Interview SummaryPanel comprised of three senior male professors.Interview started with a discussion on my research paper, the methodology used, it's robustness and limitations.Then it moved to a detailed discussion based on what I spoke in the GD. (All the interviewees before me were also questioned mostly on the their stances in GD)The professors tried putting you into scenarios where your propositions from the GD stood contradicted or invalid. Questions with no clear answers were deliberately thrown to test your critical reasoning skills. Following are some excerpts:In the GD, I had said that legalizing abortion can help regulate the underground practices of unsafe abortion mostly carried out after sex determination by quacks or untrained professionals. The professor remarked, “Following your line of reasoning, we should legalize Marijuana and drugs too. What's your view on that?”Since I had spoken in the favor of legalizing abortion, I was asked to recommend a cut off date for allowing that. The professor cleverly used the word ‘kill the child’ instead of saying “abort the fetus” to make your opinions sound grave. He would say things like “So till what time is it okay to kill the child? Three months of pregnancy, just one day before pregnancy? On the day of delivery?”And the professors were smart enough to sense any sort of beating around the bush. They cut me to pieces when I tried to ease my way out out of a difficult ethical dilemma by using heavy words. As soon as I mentioned, “an enabling social infrastructure”, the professor retorted by saying, “No big fat words please, you've already done that in GD”. They wanted crisp and clear answers and extracted the same out of you, by hook or by crook. Any diplomacy you tried to take shelter in was burnt to shreds.I loved how they openly shared a sarcastic laugh at one of my propositions to set up a committee which could deal with individual cases of abortion determining the intent of abortion, the medical implications if any and then approve the decision based on the validity of the case. They grilled me for good 10 minutes on this idea. They asked me to chart a blueprint of the committee.They legit asked me to write down in words who all will comprise the committee. Since I wrote parents as members too, they asked what about the grandparents wishes? Why don't they have a say?As the members I mentioned were four in number. They asked me what would happen if there is a tie of votes? Two people want it, two don't? Who will have a greater say? Why?Since I had mentioned that a medical professional be a part too, they asked me to specify what professional? A gynecologist? A physician? What qualifications?When I added that a gynecologist trained in clinical/counseling psychology would be a good fit. One of them remarked, “Great, she's creating jobs for herself!” :PAt some point they had asked me to enlist the stakeholders of this entire exercise of abortion legalization. I mentioned that it involves the parents, the legal jurisdiction, the medical team supervising the pregnancy and in broader sense the greater socio-cultural fabric of the country too.One of the professors remarked, “Wow who's left?”The most quiet professor of the lot, promptly quipped, “Americans? What about Americans?” (Bow before the God of Sarcasm)And another professor pointed out the great mistake I had committed, he said you've included everybody but the unborn child. Isn't he/she a stakeholder? It was a moment of epiphany for me. I did not shy away from admitting my error. I apologized for it. And he says, “Yes, now that's a good answer!”There were lots of other dicey scenarios put forth to push one's reasoning and defending abilities to the limits.It was a wonderful experience to say the least. Regardless of how they might have perceived/evaluated my performance, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and laughed at their quirky remarks long afterwards too! :DVerdict: Awaiting!Update (10/04/19) - Straight convert for both BM and HR! :D

It should be noted that my experience with homeschooling is the religious type of homeschooling. It may or may not be different for parents who actually have an education/degree and are actually qualified to teach/homeschool their children.--------------------------------------------------------I was homeschooled from 7th to 10th grade. My mother was (and still is) very religious and conservative and was worried about the "bad influences" of public school.As a result, my sisters and I were homeschooled using Christian "textbooks" which were extremely inaccurate as far as health and science were concerned. I had "science" textbooks denigrating evolution and hailing creationism. My health textbooks touted things like abstinence and the absolute necessity for women to be pure, modest, submissive, etc. The curriculum also had a primary focus on the Bible and Christian morality as opposed to actual learning and preparation for college and life as an independent adult.I hated being homeschooled with every fiber of my being. I fought my mother against every piece of propaganda she made me study. I was desperate for social interaction with my peers, but I was only allowed to meet people at the youth groups I was forced to attend.In an attempt to appease my need for friends and peers, my mom "allowed" (i.e. forced) me to go to a "Bible school" at a church to supplement our education. Here, the teachers were just regular (uneducated) mothers who were "teaching" whatever material suited their fancy. I remember taking a class on how to write a research paper and the "teacher" telling the students that they need not learn proper spelling, grammar, or penmanship because "everyone types everything nowadays anyway and there is spell check." As someone who valued knowledge and education, even as a kid, this was absolutely infuriating.However, when I would look around at all the other children around me, I knew it could be much worse. I saw many families with too many children to handle (6+) who had homeschooled their children since day one. While the fathers worked, these lamentably uneducated mothers were responsible for the entire education of 6+ kids. What ended up happening is that they might have a small degree of success with the first child (as far as keeping up with public schooled kids), but once they had multiple children to teach, everyone suffered. I knew multiple families who taught all their children at the same level. That is, their 8 year old and their 18 year old were learning the SAME INFORMATION. I knew many "seniors" who graduated and were barely able to read (and sometimes not able to read at all).I would go into detail about how entirely naive and socially inept these kids were, but I think that most people assume that of homeschoolers anyway. Most people who homeschool do so because they want to shelter their kids from the "wicked" real world, but they don't take into consideration that their children will have to enter that world eventually, regardless of the parents' prejudices against it.

Here is how:Understand Critical ThinkingPractice critical thinking (again & again)That’s it. Let’s get started..Understand Critical Thinking: Critical thinking is a metacognition, the act of judging and reviewing what you are learning while you learn it rather than just learning it.Got it? No? Yeah, I wouldn’t either. In fact I didn’t, for a long time. But it’s actually quite simple.That is it.Now, the PURPOSE of critical thinking is to develop opinions about things that are presented to you. You do this by using background knowledge, pointed questions, and understanding of the limitations of the data, argument and premise. You also do this by accepting the fact that you are smart enough to critique anything.For the purpose of this I’ve included a recent NYTimes Editorial (below)Before we start, get out a pen and paper and write a few things down. These are our CRITICAL questions. They could include:Background KnowledgeWhat type of writing is this?Who is author, what are his bias? i.e. does he work for a company, non-profit, academic?Who is his audience, how might that influence what he writes?What else do I know, if anything, about this topic?Key Content QuestionsWhat is author’s thesis?What are his main points? Are there any arguments he misses?Does he support those points with data? If so, how?What points has he not addressed that might be valid?What is the author’s premise and underlying assumptions? Are those valid?Here is the article;* * * * * * *Expanding Social SecurityBy PAUL KRUGMANPublished: November 21, 2013For many years there has been one overwhelming rule for people who wanted to be considered serious inside the Beltway. It was this: You must declare your willingness to cut Social Security in the name of “entitlement reform.” It wasn’t really about the numbers, which never supported the notion that Social Security faced an acute crisis. It was instead a sort of declaration of identity, a way to show that you were an establishment guy, willing to impose pain (on other people, as usual) in the name of fiscal responsibility.But a funny thing has happened in the past year or so. Suddenly, we’re hearing open discussion of the idea that Social Security should be expanded, not cut. Talk of Social Security expansion has even reached the Senate, with Tom Harkin introducing legislation that would increase benefits. A few days ago Senator Elizabeth Warren gave a stirring floor speech making the case for expanded benefits.Where is this coming from? One answer is that the fiscal scolds driving the cut-Social-Security orthodoxy have, deservedly, lost a lot of credibility over the past few years. (Giving the ludicrous Paul Ryan an awardfor fiscal responsibility? And where’s my debt crisis?) Beyond that, America’s overall retirement system is in big trouble. There’s just one part of that system that’s working well: Social Security. And this suggests that we should make that program stronger, not weaker.Before I get there, however, let me briefly take on two bad arguments for cutting Social Security that you still hear a lot.One is that we should raise the retirement age — currently 66, and scheduled to rise to 67 — because people are living longer. This sounds plausible until you look at exactly who is living longer. The rise in life expectancy, it turns out, is overwhelmingly a story about affluent, well-educated Americans. Those with lower incomes and less education have, at best, seen hardly any rise in life expectancy at age 65; in fact, those with less education have seen their life expectancy decline.So this common argument amounts, in effect, to the notion that we can’t let janitors retire because lawyers are living longer. And lower-income Americans, in case you haven’t noticed, are the people who need Social Security most.The other argument is that seniors are doing just fine. Hey, their poverty rate is only 9 percent.There are two big problems here. First, there are well-known flaws with the official poverty measure, and these flaws almost surely lead to serious understatement of elderly poverty. In an attempt to provide a more realistic picture, the Census Bureau now regularly releases a supplemental measure that most experts consider superior — and this measure puts senior poverty at 14.8 percent, close to the rate for younger adults.Furthermore, the elderly poverty rate is highly likely to rise sharply in the future, as the failure of America’s private pension system takes its toll.When you look at today’s older Americans, you are in large part looking at the legacy of an economy that is no more. Many workers used to have defined-benefit retirement plans, plans in which their employers guaranteed a steady income after retirement. And a fair number of seniors (like my father, until he passed away a few months ago) are still collecting benefits from such plans.Today, however, workers who have any retirement plan at all generally have defined-contribution plans — basically, 401(k)’s — in which employers put money into a tax-sheltered account that’s supposed to end up big enough to retire on. The trouble is that at this point it’s clear that the shift to 401(k)’s was a gigantic failure. Employers took advantage of the switch to surreptitiously cut benefits; investment returns have been far lower than workers were told to expect; and, to be fair, many people haven’t managed their money wisely.As a result, we’re looking at a looming retirement crisis, with tens of millions of Americans facing a sharp decline in living standards at the end of their working lives. For many, the only thing protecting them from abject penury will be Social Security. Aren’t you glad we didn’t privatize the program?* * * * * * *Now go back to our questions (don’t worry, with practice you can do this without writing them down). I've filled them in, poorly, see if you can do better.Background KnowledgeWhat type of writing is this?– Opinion column in NYTimes, therefore, will be rhetorical not as factual as a research paper. Facts are omitted due to length and established expertise of authorWho is author, what are his bias? Paul Krugman, noted liberal economist, works for the Paper. Point of view is from economist, not a personal accountWho is his audience, how might that influence what he writes? His audience is likely to be highly educated and intellectual Americans who read the Times (and generally >30yrs) and policy-makers in DC. It’s an opinion piece designed to change minds or at least improve the debate.Key Content QuestionsWhat is author’s thesis? Washington politicians should expand social security benefitsWhat are his main points? Krugman makes his points by attacking the negative arguments. 1) people who are most likely to need social security are NOT increasing in average age therefore age limits shouldn’t go up, 2) the argument that elderly are coming out of poverty is specious because the data is incredible. His makes an affirmative argument that defined contribution plans cannot be relied onDoes he support those points with data? Not really, but again, that is the nature of OP Eds. And he’s Paul Krugman, he’s earned the right to give his opinion w/o dataWhat points has he not addressed that might be valid? Krugman doesn’t quantify; program should expand but how much, who pays for it? How much would it help the elderly?What is the author’s premise and underlying assumptions? Are those valid? Krugman’s premise is that people will be better off with more social security. He assumes defined contribution plan returns will not grow back, that the elderly do not have another source of income or support and that workers who are most in poverty will continue to have lowest death rates.In sum: Paul Krugman makes an argument in the recent NYTimes that policy-makers should expand social security benefits. He points to the lower life expectancy of people who most need social security, attacks data on elderly poverty rates, and says defined contribution plans have not worked. His argument could be improved by quantifying what he’s advocating and why it would be effective.And that is critical thinking (not great critical thinking, sorry). But that is all it is.2. Practice Critical Thinking ALL THE TIME.Start with questions like those above and put yourself though this exercise with newspapers, TV, books, even basic conversations.It gets easier the more you practice.Before you know it you’ll have critical opinions about everything and can annoy/impress all your friends. Like everyone else on Quora.