Lucky No. 87

Tessa vanderhart, staff

Manitoban: What have you been doing since you graduated?

Akosua Matthews: Well, I graudated in May ’06. I graduated a year early — I did a four-year degree, I finished in three years. I applied for the internship at the Manitoba legislature — and so that was pretty fun. I was the lead intern for 10 months, it’s a 10-month internship, and then I had the summer. And after that I started my job as a policy analyst. I’m pretty much working for government, full-time.

M: So when do you go to Oxford?

M: It would be next fall. So I have a bit of time to . . . be normal. (laughs) and just get ready. Right now the biggest thing I have to do is just apply to Oxford, I’m not guaranteed a spot. So, I’m just guaranteed the funding.

M: What are you planning to study there?

M: I hope to do graduate studies in philosophy. My undergrad was in philosophy, so . . . Oxford’s kind of the place to study philosophy in the world.

M: What interests you about philosophy?

M: That sounds like a question I got on my Rhodes interview. I had to defend why philosophy is pragmatic or pracitcal or applicable in the real world. I don’t want to be a professional philosopher, and my goal is to be a lawyer, but I think that philosophy teaches a lot of skills that other subjects don’t look at, that I think are applicable in all aspects of life —the ability to rationalize, logical thought, the ability to criticize constructively, I think are important in all aspects of life. I don’t know how I’m going to use those skills — I’m using them in my job right now, obviously, and I would use them in the legal profession, but until then, I just think that philosophy is incredibly fascinating — just the ability to study old texts.

M: What are you most exited for about going to Oxford?

M: Well, I’ve never been there. Everyone tells me how beautiful it is, and how there’s so much culture and music and the arts are really big — it’s very much a liberal-arts university — it’s also a very international university, and I could easily be going to school with the son of Zimbabwe’s president — that’s just how it works. So I’m excited to meet people from all over the world, I think is the biggest thing. And also, the ability to finally travel: I haven’t been overseas since I was a baby, so — this is a pretty big deal for me. And just living in, it’s very much a university town. And it’s close to London. And I think I’m going to use the opportunity to travel to Europe on my vacation breaks. So, those things are exciting. On top of the opportunity — if get accepted — to study philosophy at the biggest philosophy department in the world.

M: What do you think you’ll miss most about Winnipeg?

M: Something I’m very cognizant of is that I was only able to get this award because Winnipeg is such a community town, and there’s a lot of people who were supporting me. I’ve lived here pretty much my entire life, I’m definitely going to miss my family, friends — I’m just starting to realize that I have a whole network of people that I am going to have to leave. That takes years to build, that’s taken pretty much my entire life to build, so to leave that is very — I’ve never done that before. I think it’s going to be quite hard. But at least I know that it’s only two years away, and I hope to return.

M: You’ve been really involved here at U of M — what have been some of your best experiences?

M: I was very much involved in student councils, usually in a nonpartisan role. I was never a student advocate, I guess you could say, or an activist, in any sense. I was the chairperson [of UMSU council]. So I had a very neutral role. And that’s kind of the role I like; I’m not one to pick sides pretty easily, I’m more interested in the process. And I didn’t realize how valuable that experience was — it was a two-year experience — but the ability to manage a council is something that I’m able to use when I go into the boardroom with my job right now. And so I didn’t notice, or see, that it would be a transferable skill. And you get to meet a lot of people! I know a lot of people from the U of M from those roles that I took on.

M: Did you have any negative experiences at U of M?

M: It might be tied to specific courses [laughs]. I took a course on the European Union and I thought it was absolutely horrible, and really boring. But I had such a compressed degree that I didn’t really have time to be bored — I was in, and then I was out.

M: The U of M makes a big deal out of its Rhodes scholars — and rightly so. How did the university help you get to the Rhodes?

M: Maybe not the U of M as a whole — but parts of it, certainly, were extremely helpful. The fact that I was able to be involved through UMSU definitely helps. My department, my philosophy department is very small, very hands-on, and I got to know my professors, which is absolutely integral if you’re going to get reference letters of that sort. I think that’d be harder to do as a science student. And the awards office, actually, is very proactive about calling students that they think could be potential candidates, and encouraging them. Because the Rhodes process is so involved, and so difficult, that you almost need people to keep pushing you along the way — it’s hard to just go do it on your own, because it’s just too hard. they went out and they called me and they said, “You should apply.” And they gave me a mock interview every time I advanced to another stage, so I did two, and they’re very involved. I think it’s good PR for the U of M, obviously, but they’re willing to help.

M: What’s it been like since you found out?

M: It’s weird — because I’m getting a lot of the same sorts of questions. People are asking me what it’s like to be a Rhodes scholar and I don’t quite feel like one yet. So it’s very hard to answer.

But I think it’s absolutely important that the university does pay attention to these awards. I noticed that the University of Winnipeg didn’t pay as much attention to their student this year, and I think that’s a bit of a shame. I think the universities should pay attention, and make it a big deal, if they can. It’s weird on the receiving end, though, it definitely is weird.

M: You must have had great grades in high school, and you went to high school down the street, at FRC — why did you come to university also right down the street?

Until now, I’ve only applied to one university in my life — the University of Manitoba. I always knew that I wanted to do more than one degree; I didn’t see the point of leaving quite yet. I’ve been raised by parents who have lived around the world, and have chosen to raise my brother and myself here in Winnipeg, so I’m very conscious of the fact that, this is a good place to live, this is a good place to raise a family. And I wasn’t about to leave all of that, all of a sudden. In my group of friends, who were all keeners in high school, they all went to U of T and Queen’s, all these major universities, and I was the one who didn’t go.

M: What is your secret to getting good grades?

M: I think you just have to do what you like to do. I was going to do business when I came to university, ,I took an intro philosophy course and fell in love with philosophy. And then I had this big internal struggle: do I do business, which is vocational, I’ll probably get a job —or do I do philosophy, and who knows what I’ll do with that? I made the choice to do what I love, because I thought, if I do it well, perhaps it will get me somewhere on its own merit. And it has.

It’s hard. Philosophy is hard, it’s a very hard subject, but because I love it so much I put the work into it and I did well. And obviously that’s going to help me out getting into other schools, and law school, and I think it will just snowball from there. So the biggest advice: just do what you love, and hopefully someone will eventually pay you to do it.

M: What’s something most people don’t know about you?

I’m in the reserves, which is something that people find quite surprising, because I’m not buff or anything like that, but I’m in the army reserves, and I have to go through boot camp and all of that, that any other person entering the military would have to do. People find that surprising, I think.

M: If you could change one thing about U of M, what would it be?

I think if I could — this is a really hard thing to change — I’d change the attitude about the University of Manitoba. I had good grades in high school and I probably could have gone to other schools, had I put my mind to it. But I chose the U of M.

And I think it affects the university culture as well: people think that there aren’t ambitious people attending the U of M, or there aren’t smart people attending. If they can produce 87 Rhodes scholars, the most in Western Canada, something good is going on here. So hopefully people can realize that and just embrace it. You can do whatever you want here in Manitoba.