Describe a time when you changed your opinion

You should say:

• when it was

• what your original opinion was

• why you changed it

• explain how you felt about it.

Sample Answer:

I don’t really like to argue with people unless I have a very valid reason to do so. But, when I do argue, I always want to make sure that my opinions are not ignored or rendered irrelevant. Then again, I have changed my opinions also on a number of occasions before when I was offered some more valid opinions, and today, I would like to talk about one such occasion.

It was about 2/3 years ago when I was a final year university student. Up and until then, I very much had an opinion that we didn’t really need to participate in any kind of cultural activities (i.e. music, debates, dancing, or performing in theatres) as students since such activities can distract us from our studies and academic lessons. In other words, as students, we should only focus on our studies.

By the way, I had such strong opinions in favour of focusing on studies only as a student, mainly because that’s exactly what my parents had taught me all along. Besides, my parents had pointed out to me that one of my distant cousins was not able to perform well academically because he was just too busy learning/playing guitar with his friends. So, naturally, I just didn’t have the courage to challenge the opinion of my parents as far as the issue of taking part in cultural activities was concerned.

But, all that changed when I came across a research article, published by one of the most prestigious universities in the world, which meticulously articulated the benefits of taking part in cultural activities as to actually how it could help the students learn to maintain balance in their lives when focusing on different tasks and things as adults.

Anyway, when I got the opportunity to change my opinion, I initially felt a bit sad, learning that I had missed some great opportunities as a student in the past to unearth my talents in the cultural arena. Having said that, however, I also felt like I was “liberated” from a rather poor “stereotype”.