Online Exam Experience

Hey,

I had a terrible exam experience.

I took International Management Class this term. It was offered online. It was such a great class. I learned so much about trade, international business and economics. As a requirement for the class, we had to take two online exams. The first one was a month and half ago and the second one was four days ago.

The exam was set in a way that once you enter the exam; you had to finish it in three hours. There were 60 multiple choice questions. However, the tricky part was that even if your internet connection was disconnected, your exam was gone. Just to remind you, I am in Afghanistan.

I took all the precautious measures. I went to a friend’s office and hooked up to a wired connection.  I stayed there late night so I will not be disturbed. I started my exam at 7:00 PM. And I informed the guards that I will be having an exam and I need good internet.

I copied the exam to a word file so I can start working on it. The problem is that once you select one choice directly in the exam page, it saves the answer in 4 second automatically so there is not room for correction. Therefore, I wanted to make sure that I have all the answers right, then I will post it.  I was working on the exam until 9:00 PM and finished it in word file. As soon as I wanted to transfer it to the exam area, I lost internet connection. Oh man, I was so pissed off. I checked the server room and a guard was there but he said that he did not touch the internet. I checked the server and there was no connection. I was checking the server and realized that the connection was back. I did not know what happened but when I came back to my computer, my exam was gone and I could not enter any more.

I was really scared. I instantly sent an email to my professor. I did not get a reply. I called his assistant in US but she could not help me. I was in the office until 11:00 PM but no response from any side. I had to leave office and go home. There were some celebrations planned for next day so there were a lot of police check points. I was stopped almost in five places and they were asking what I am doing that late. Anyways, I got home safe but very disappointed. I had only 12 hours to complete the exam if my professor was willing to give me a second chance. 8 hours would have been spent in sleeping because I did not have internet at home so I could only sleep. I had only four hours window that could save me.

I got up early in the morning the next day and came to the office, though it was a holiday.  I checked my emails and found out that I was given a second chance but I had to take the entire exam again. I took the exam again and luckily this time I was able to submit it 15 minutes prior to the deadline and with all the questions being attempted. I was glad but I had spent a terrible night.

Regards,

Javid

Interview with Deputy Minister

Hello,

The second interview I conducted was with Mr. Ghani Ghuriani, the technical deputy minister for Ministry of Agriculture. Here is the summary:

Mr. Ghuriani is a middle aged man. He would be around 40. He has studied in Kabul Agriculture University. He has been working in government for almost 15 years. He has worked on numerous positions. His last job was as Planning and Policy General Director for Ministry of Agriculture and now he is the technical deputy minister for this ministry. He is a very dynamic person. He is able to manage his tasks really well. Though he is a political appointee, he is also a very technical person.

Q: How is your experience with public sector?

A: It is not bad. Actually, I would say it was good as I made good progress politically and technically. I am not from a political family but I managed to succeed to this level based on my skills and capacities. Public sector is not that a bad place but you should be a little patient.  

Q: What are some of the challenges?

A: Bureaucracy would be always a challenge. However, I do not think capacity is a challenge. I believe it is the way capacity is used is the challenge. Whoever you bring into this system, will not produce as expected because here many things run according to the system and you have to follow them.  

Q: What would you like to change in public sector?

A: I would change the support deliver systems (Finance, Procurement, Admin). They do not serve the customer but they follow the regulations. We should change them in a way that they focus on customer satisfaction rather than following red tape. In addition, I would change some of the restrictions. We should enable our staff so they can take decisions and feel responsible.

Q: Any suggestion for the new graduates?

A: Studies are always important. It is like you are building a house and you have a sketch. You can build a house without a sketch as well but you never know how it will look like. Meanwhile, you cannot rely only on the sketch; you should build the house to see the reality of your sketch. So I would encourage all to study and get a good sketch for their future career.  

All the best,

Thank you,

Javid

Interview with General Director

Hey,

I could not attend career services events. So I interviewed two of the senior government officials in the organization where I am doing my internship. I will post their interviews. Here is the first one:

I interviewed Mr. Assad Zamir, General Director of Programs, in Ministry of Agriculture. He is young and very talented fellow. He has done his Bachelor’s in management from Preston University and has done his Master’s in Economics from San Jose, United States. He is Fulbright Scholar. He has worked on many senior positions during his career. He has been Adviser to the minister, manager, director and now general director.

Q: How is your experience with public sector?

A: It is complex and challenging. However, it is interesting and especially if you are committed for the good of many, you will enjoy the small wins that you achieve.

Q: What are some of the challenges?

A: Bureaucratic procedures would be also the main challenge. But we have to know that’s how governments operate. In addition, low capacity, political environment and the complexity of dealing with various stakeholders such as public, donors, parliamentarians and etc are other major challenges.

Q: How did your master’s degree helped you?

A: it helped me to better analyze the issues. It helped me to understand various strategies. Most importantly, it helped me see how developed world operates.

Q: What would you like to change in public sector?

A: I would like to have better operations. Importantly, I would like to focus more on implementing policies rather than developing them. Shortly, I can say that I would improve the business processes.

Q: Any suggestion for the new graduates?

A: The real world is not as simple as we see it during our studies. Therefore, we have to be patient when we enter into an organization. We should learn first about the organization and we should find out where we can fit. Every job is not prepared for everyone. So, we have to make sure that we choose the right job for ourselves. I do not say that studying does not help but we should not entirely rely on it.

All the best,

Thank you,

Javid

Afghan Weddings

Hello,

Recently, there is a lot of talk about weddings in Afghanistan. Most of the talks are about huge expenses that occur in the weddings. Couple of weeks ago, Ministry of Justice announced that they are looking into the weddings and are trying to formulate a law that prohibits such unnecessary expenses. I thought I should give you some information about the weddings and expenses. We were discussing this in one of my classes and many students found it interesting.

First and foremost, there are both types of weddings in Afghanistan- arranged and love.  Arranged marriages are the ones that are thoroughly done by the parents and the bride and the groom see each later. These consists most of the weddings in villages and almost half in the cities. Love marriages are also a custom in cities. However, these are quite different than the love marriages in West. Boys and girls are not really seeing each other but only know each other. In some circumstances, it is possible that they are seeing each other and then till their parents that they want to get married.

The interesting point is that expenses in both cases are almost the same. The issue starts with the boy’s parents going to girl’s house and requesting girl’s hand for their son. Girl’s parents accept the offer and traditionally give some chocolates and candies as a sign of agreement. The next step is to go formally with some relatives and get a formal agreement. The girl's family give a specifically prepared bouquet of flowers and chocolates. The boy has to pay for the expenses. In some cases, the boy pays extra in this occasion so girl’s parents can buy stuff for their daughter when she is getting married.

After this, there will be a formal engagement party. In the cities these parties are in hotels and in the villages these parties are at girl’s house. There will be around 300 to 400 guests in the engagement party. The boy has to pay for the expenses. In addition, you need to have a live band to sing. Furthermore, the boy has to pay for the clothes and jewelries of the girl. Now you are formally engaged!

People mostly wait a year or a year and half from engagement to marriage. During this period, there will be some cultural celebrations such as New Year, EID, and so on. The boy has to take clothes and sometimes jewelries for the girl.

Then it is time for marriage. The marriage ceremony is almost the same like the engagement with a different that there would be around 1000 guests attending it. Surely, the boy has to pay to feed them all. In addition, you need a live band to sing for you. Furthermore, the boy has to buy clothes for girl and girl’s closest family members.

Many times, boys would be in debt for many years until they pay back the money that they lend for their marriage. However, guests really enjoy all the events. There is free food; free music and you can dance as much as you want. It is fun to be in someone’s wedding.

However, be careful if you are planning to marry and Afghan girl.  

Regards,

Javid

Local Games in Afghanistan

Hi All,

There are so many topics that I wanted to write about but one of them got my attention the most, my country- Afghanistan. You will always hear about fighting, war, corruption and such things in Afghanistan. However, I would like to give you some other information- about the local games.

With all the talk about fighting and war outside, people inside the country are very peace-loving. I cannot deny there have been parties who fought but there have been hundreds and thousands who have been victims. The number of victims exceeds far beyond the ones who fight so it is obvious all the people are not pro-war.

I lived part of my childhood in Kabul. I went to school for many years in Kabul and enjoyed child plays here. I remember we were kids from different backgrounds and ethnicities and we were all playing together. We never thought someone else is different. The three main child-plays at that time were Ghorsai, Toshl-a-bord , Toop-Danda and skiing. I do not know the names of these games in English except the ski. In Ghorsia ther are two teams and every team has a base. You keep one leg above the ground and run to touch the other base. Toshl-a-bord is an individual game and is played with marbles. Furthermore, Toop-Danda is somehow like base ball with a difference that there are only two bases and the batsman throws the ball in the air himself and then hit it. Ski is performed in winter and in cold areas of the country. The difference is we do not go to the mountains; we prepare the surface of the ice in our streets and start skiing- Afghan style. Nowadays most kids, at least in the capital, play a lot with video games.

When I got young, we were playing other sports such as soccer and volleyball. There were so many teams around the town and we would always have matches and tournaments.  This was the time that video games were first introduced. There were many video game centers and youngsters were going there to play video games. The most interesting point was there would have been matches. Afghans are very competitive and like to play games when there is competition. In northern parts of the country, people do Buzkashi. This game is played with horses and there will be two teams. There will be a goat (slaughtered) in one circle and the teams try to pick up the goat and bring it to another circle. The other team will stop this team and will try to take the goat themselves. All this is done on the horses.

There is another famous game-kite running. I intentionally put it as this is played by children and youngsters and even elders. We run kites all our lives but the scope would be different. When we are children we have plastic kites and the threat is also not very good. When we grew up then we have beautiful kites and we use threads that are specially prepared for kite running. Every of the mentioned games have a specific time in the country. When it is time of kite-running, you will see a very colorful sky all around.

In addition to the above, people play indoor games such as cards and chess. There are some other indoor games as well but not very popular. It is also worth mentioning that the games mentioned above are mostly played by boys. Girls play some of them but they also have some special games such as Panjaq and Jiz-bazi. These two are very difficult to explain here.

Hope you enjoyed it. I will write about Afghan weddings in my next blog.

Regards,

Javid