1. Be a Residence __________.
It really doesn’t matter if you’re an RA or on Exec: you have made yourself essential in the sticky, sweaty, liquor-soaked machine that is residence life at Mount Allison. Congratulations! You’ve just earned yourself a one-way ticket to any committee, club, or society executive on campus you want! Elections are a breeze, because hey—you’re a leader! And it’s a good thing you get paid nickels and dimes, too, because you sure as hell have to keep that scholarship now.
2. Study International Relations and [insert unconventional combination with IR here].
This step is essential. Knowing how the nations relate to one another is going to come in handy at Oxford. Whether you’re a realist, a feminist, an institutionalist, or a postmodernist, it really won’t matter. The point is, you’ve started a dialogue. There are no right answers, only perspectives. What really matters is that you talk a lot in your seminars. Just say things. Pull your other major out of a hat; you’ll look well rounded. You may as well challenge yourself here, because nothing could be harder than getting an experiential learning credit approved.
3. Either spend your summers (one) helping people that probably don’t want your help, and/or (two) researching ways of helping people that probably don’t want your help.
With this step, you can get creative. Most applicants opt for the latter option, because Honduras was just too damn hot. You’re an intellectual. So grab a seat on Ducky’s sunny patio and hunker down for a full Sackville summer of half-baked undergraduate research that posits massive change for time-honoured methods and institutions. And enjoy yourself! You’re unmolested by the gravity of work that has been done in the discipline. The committee will love your enthusiasm; you’re an agent of change after all. Go nuts! And don’t forget to buy me a hat at Sappy.
4. Start an athletic society that doesn’t exist at Mt. A—or prepare to romanticize your love of jogging.
According to the criteria set by ol’ Cecil himself, Rhodes scholars need to have the “energy to use one’s talents to the fullest, as exemplified by fondness for and success in sports.” In other words, you will need the tenacity to get out of playing a real varsity sport.
5. Prepare for the guilt of knowing that your graduate studies will be funded with some of the dirtiest blood money the world has ever seen.
After spending four years studying the great injustices of the world, get ready to cash in on them! Think back to your first Poli Sci paper. Remember? The one titled, “Colonialism is the worst: a white, upper-middle class, adolescent’s perspective.” Well, now you get to go to grad school on Mr. Kurtz’s dime! My advice is to just keep reminding yourself that you’re going to make up for all the exploits and human rights violations that got you across the pond by being the best damn walking advertisement a university has ever seen! I’m already looking forward to your talk at the President’s Speaker Series.
– See more at: http://argosy.ca/article/five-steps-becoming-mt-allisons-52nd-rhodes-scholar#sthash.qTxyHh9I.dpuf
