STUDIES, EXAMS, STRIKES & TERRORISM IN THE UK

CONFESSIONS OF A GLOBAL GYPSY

By Dr. Chandana (Chandi) Jayawardena DPhil
President – Chandi J. Associates Inc. Consulting, Canada
Founder & Administrator – Global Hospitality Forum
chandij@sympatico.ca

Study Strategies

“Read these eight books on Hotel Management Accounting and Corporate Finance, cover to cover.” Professor Richard Kotas gave this direction to the graduate students in the M.Sc. program in International Hotel Management, at the University of Surrey (UoS), in the United Kingdom (UK). After the 1983 autumn semester mid-term tests, other professors followed suit with similar directions for their courses in Marketing Principles for Hotel Management, International Hotel Management Seminars, Quantitative Methods, Project Design and Analysis, Computer Applications, Organization Theory and Manpower Management etc. It was overwhelming! I quickly realised that I needed to develop a practical and effective strategy for my studies.

Some of my younger batchmates who were yet to gain any management experience, followed “reading cover to cover” directions literally. To me it did not sound doable. One marketing text book had over 700 pages! As none of my batch mates worked part-time, like I did, they all had more time for studies than I. So I settled for reading only the chapter summaries and figures and tables within book chapters.In order to acquire other shortcuts, I attended some non-mandatory ‘student success strategy’ sessions. These sessions provided some excellent study and exam strategies but were not well-attended. I immediately implemented the strategies I liked. Most of them worked well for me.

Exam Strategies

I spent a considerable amount of time at the university library analysing all old exam papers for some general courses in M.Sc. in Tourism Planning and Development, set by the same professors. I identified questions they repeated every year, in alternate years and occasionally. Based on that research, I guessed what questions could be included in the exams that I would sit.

After that I organized a M.Sc. study group of four like-minded students and assigned the most likely four questions, based on one question per graduate student basis. Each of us then became the expert on one question area per course. As the next step, we presented the answers developed by each expert, to each other. Then we debated and fine-tuned the four answers, which all four shared.

For our challenging courses such as Quantitative Methods, we made an appointment to meet each professor for a discussion. “Dr. Wanhill, the four of us are very nervous about your exam. We studied a lot and prepared some model answers to potential questions, but we still are not sure if we have done this well enough”, I told the senior lecturer who was teaching us Quantitative Methods.

Dr. Wanhill, a nice gentleman, was so impressed with our efforts that he said, “Come on chaps, don’t be nervous. Let’s go through all of your questions and answers.” He spent two hours coaching us and we guessed that the questions he spent more time in explaining were ‘sure exam questions’. This strategy helped us and four of us did well in the Quantitative Methods exams. It had been our worst course!

Implementing a tip from a ‘student success strategy’ session, I also spent time with each professor, prior to the final exam, inquiring what would be an ideal format for answering their questions at the exam. Some preferred essay type, a few liked point-form, and only one liked the idea of examples from my own career. I wrote the exams exactly the way they preferred, changing my style of answering to suit each professor. Applying my concept of ‘Personality Analysis’ and adjusting the way I communicated with each professor, proved to be beneficial.

I also learnt to invest about 30 minutes planning my answers at the beginning of each paper. I then planned to keep the last 30 minutes to review my four answers and fine-tune those before handing over my exam answer script at the last minute. With this strategy, I spent exactly 30-minutes per answer. To me, the answer plan and the time management were key elements for exam success.

After some debates about the effectiveness of ‘last minute studying’ prior to exams, I opted to adopt a concept of being at each day’s exam, right at the peak of my day. For this strategy, we first identified the number of hours each student can work without being tired. Most students were eight-hour people and a few were ten or twelve-hour people. Considering my multi-tasking work pattern in the previous years, I identified myself as a sixteen-hour person, which was rare. This meant that when the middle of an exam time was 10:00 am, I commenced my final revision studies on the same day of the exam, eight hours before that – at 2:00 am. As, at that time, I needed a maximum six hours of sleep to function well, I went to bed at 8:00 pm. This worked well for me.

When I sat one exam invigilated by Professor Richard Kotas, I could not believe my eyes. All four questions that my study group predicted were there. I had studied thoroughly the four model answers during the previous six hours since 2:00 am. “Chandi, why are you seated smiling, without answering the questions?” a baffled Professor Kotas asked me. “Sir, I am just planning my answers to these very difficult and unpredictable questions” I told him while trying to look worried. Although exam positions were not publicly announced, Professor Kotas indicated to me privately that I was overall first in both autumn and winter semester exams, something I had never achieved in my life prior to that.

Fight for Dissertation Topic

By early 1984, we began identifying topics for our dissertations, which had to be done ideally within a minimum of six months by students who had passed 10 exams over two semesters. Nine professors were assigned to supervise the nine students who were in my M.Sc. batch. When we commenced our one-on-one meetings with potential dissertation supervisors, we felt some pressure to align student dissertation topics with supervisors’ current research interests and publications.

The Head of the Department of the Hotel, Catering and Tourism Management at UoS at that time was Professor Brian Archer. He was an economist and an expert on tourism forecasting. “Ah, Chandi, I would like to suggest a dissertation topic ideal for someone like you. How about ‘Long-term tourism forecasting of South Asia?’ You can test exciting models, including mine, and even develop a new model!”, he suggested with a big and convincing smile. I simply hated that topic and had no interest in it.

I preferred to do research on a topic that would help the next stage of my career. After completing the M.Sc. program, I wanted to become the Food & Beverage Manager of a large, international five-star hotel. “I am thinking of something like, ‘Food and beverage management of British five-star hotels’ I announced to the dissatisfaction of Professor Archer. “That does not sound academically suitable for a master’s degree dissertation”, he said. I disagreed. When the university realized that I was determined to research and write on a practical subject, I was asked to make a convincing proposal to justify the suitability of my topic.

Although Professor Archer was disappointed with me on that occasion, he later became a good friend of mine. When I was the General Manager of the Lodge and the Village, Habarana, he stayed with me. He was a good chess player, and we played several games there. In later years, when he heard that I wish to do a Ph.D., he arranged an interview for me to be considered for a post of Lecturer at UoS, during my Ph.D. research. Unfortunately, as another professor in the selection committee did not support me with the same enthusiasm as Professor Archer, I did not get that job, but I re-joined UoS to do a M.Phil./Ph.D. in 1990.

After more negotiations in 1984, and revisions to my M.Sc. dissertation proposal, eventually, UoS approved a slightly modified topic for my research – ‘Food and beverage operations in the context of five-star London hotels’. Professor Richard Kotas became my dissertation supervisor. “Chandi, covering the whole of UK will be too much. Just focus on the 16 five-star hotels in London”, he suggested. I agreed and said that, “I will work or observe in all of these 16 hotels and interview the relevant managers. Kindly give me letters of introduction.” “Chandi, in addition, as the first step, you must read all books – cover to cover, and journal articles ever written in English about Food and beverage management and operations”, he suggested. I said, “Yes, Sir!” and did exactly that over a period of three months.

British Strikes

UK had strong unions and a culture of strikes. Some strikes affected me personally. One I remember clearly was towards the end of March in 1984, when the transport workers paralyzed London’s buses and subways. That strike was the first of a series of work stoppages in major British cities to protest Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher’s proposals for local government changes. Cars and cyclists jammed roads in London as some 2.5 million people found alternate ways to work. Thousands walked while others jogged or hitch-hiked. My wife and I stayed at home without going to work.

On March 6, 1984, when I saw on the BBC TV news about a miners’ strike, I assumed that it was one of those strikes in UK which would last for a short period of time before a settlement. I was wrong. It was a major, industrial action within the British coal industry in an attempt to prevent colliery closures, suggested by the government for economic reasons. The strike was led by Arthur Scargill, the President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) against the National Coal Board (NCB), a government agency. Opposition to the strike was led by the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher that wanted to reduce the power of the trade unions. This strike lasted a year, and I eagerly waited to watch the TV news about it every evening until the strike finally ended in March, 1985.

Violent confrontations between flying pickets and police characterised the year-long strike which ended in a decisive victory for the Conservative government and allowed the closure of most of Britain’s collieries.

Many observers regarded this landmark strike as the most bitter industrial dispute in British history. The number of person-days of work lost to the strike was over 26 million, making it one of the biggest strikes in history. Thousands were arrested and charged, over a 100 were injured, and sadly, six lost their lives.

From that historic moment onwards, British unions were somewhat weakened. With the tough handling of the NUM strike, Margaret Thatcher consolidated her reputation as the ‘Iron Lady’, a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and the tough leadership style. As the first female prime minister of UK, she implemented policies that became known as ‘Thatcherism’.

I spent the summer of 1979 in London soon after Margaret Thatcher became the Prime Minister of UK. On April 12, 1984, I served her dinner at a royal banquet held in honour of the Queen of England at the Dorchester. When she was ousted from the position of the Prime Minister after a cabinet revolt in 1990, I was living in London again. On November 28, 1990, I watched her final speech as the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, and leaving her office and residence in Downing Street in tears. A few years after that, I hosted her successor, John Major in my office at Le Meridien Jamaica Pegasus Hotel.

Terrorism

The civil war in Sri Lanka which commenced in July 1983 before we left for UK was getting worse. Although we thought that UK was peaceful, that country had its large share of terrorism, predominately in the hands of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). During my first stay in UK in 1979, I was shocked to see on TV that IRA claimed responsibility for the assassination of Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten. As the supreme allied commander for Southeast Asia, he had commanded the British troops from his base in Ceylon during the latter part of World War II.

My first direct exposure to terrorism in UK was when I was working at Bombay Brasserie in Kensington, London. “Chandi, be careful, when going home today. Avoid the circle line and don’t go near Knightsbridge. IRA bombed Harrods!”, an Indian work colleague warned me. Harrods, world famous upmarket department store in the affluent Knightsbridge district, near Buckingham Palace, had been subject to two IRA bomb attacks earlier. Although the IRA had sent a warning 37 minutes before a car bomb that exploded outside Harrods on December 17, 1983, the area had not been evacuated. Due to this car bomb, six people died and 90 were injured. This was the 40th terrorist attack in UK since early 1970s.

On October 12, 1984, a powerful IRA bomb went off with deadly effect in the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England, where members of Britain’s Conservative Party were gathered for a party conference. IRA’s target was to assassinate the British Prime Minister and the other key members of her government. The bomb ripped a hole through several storeys of the 120-year-old hotel.

When the bomb went off just before 3:00 am, Margaret Thatcher was still awake at the time, working in her suite on her conference speech for the next day. The blast badly damaged her suite’s bathroom, but left its sitting room and bedroom untouched. She and her husband were fortunate to escape serious injury, although 34 people were injured and another five killed. The next day, when we watched her on TV delivering an excellent party conference speech with a brave face, I remarked to my wife, “She truly is a real Iron Lady!”

On October 31, 1984 when I was going to work at the Dorchester, I heard a loud celebration in some parts of London. Some Sikh men were lighting fire crackers while celebrating and distributing sweets and fruits to onlookers. I assumed that it must be a Sikh holiday event, but soon realised that they were celebrating an assassination. Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had been assassinated at her residence in New Delhi, early morning that day, by her Sikh bodyguards.

I knew that five months prior to that day, Indira Gandhi had ordered the removal of a prominent orthodox Sikh religious leader and his rebel followers from the Golden Temple of Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar, Punjab. The collateral damage included the death of approximately 500 Sikh pilgrims. The military action on the sacred temple was criticized both inside and outside India. Indira Gandhi’s assassination sparked four days of riots that left more than 8,000 Indian Sikhs dead in revenge attacks. The world is a dangerous place to live in.