The Interview

Last Tuesday, I sat down in a conference room with my Fulbright Advisor and four campus committee members. My nerves were jacked way up (as they always are for interviews) despite how much I had prepared over the weekend. All of the committee members are faculty at UWT and three of them are previous Fulbrighters themselves. I definitely felt a little intimidated in their company.

Their questions began abruptly, and even though I had practiced answers for ones I knew would come up, all of my prepared responses vanished from mind. I felt like I was scrambling for words and not making much sense. I tried to tell myself to take it easy, that this wasn’t a job interview, but my brain kept sending freak-out mode messages to my body anyway: my hands started shaking, my mouth went dry, and my body temperature soared.

The interview is a total blur in my mind. I don’t remember much. But after all the Q&A the meeting took a very different turn. It was at this point that they began to give me feedback on my essays and overall application. The room became comfortable and relaxed. The committee members began outlining the strengths of my application and they said it was already very good. They gave me advice on what to elaborate and where to go into more depth. They also gave recommendations on what to add, based on my answers to their questions.

Later that day, I received an email from my Fulbright Advisor that provided her notes on our meeting. She began by saying that the committee was very impressed by my maturity, experience, and commitment to students. She also noted that my application was already very strong, and the recommended revisions would only make it better. What a huge confidence boost. Even though I feel like I messed up on a couple of my responses due to stress-induced amnesia, I left feeling like I might actually have a shot at this.

Now I have until Oct. 14th (the national deadline) to make these revisions and submit my entire application to Fulbright. This will be a challenge, but I am excited to finally finish and focus on other responsibilities, like my NAFSA project. I will also start looking for other international opportunities to apply for, in case my Fulbright dream doesn’t come true. Until then, I will be working three days per week in the study abroad office, training and guiding the new Study Abroad Ambassadors. I am so excited for this new year of international programs at UWT!

More to come as I begin putting the finishing touches on my essays.

University of Cartagena – Cartagena, Colombia.  (Qué linda, no?)

Done! …But not.

A few days ago I submitted my Fulbright application for the campus committee to review. I was hard pressed for time and still trying to edit, but at 7pm on Wednesday I decided to stop messing around with my essays and just click “SUBMIT.” These past couple of days have felt odd now that I don’t have a major looming deadline. I can’t shake the sense of feeling like I need to be doing something.

(Not so) Luckily, I have another deadline approaching of a different sort. My Fulbright interview, conducted by the campus committee, is on the 23rd. Only ten days away. There is much to be done to prepare. Unfortunately for me, I am notoriously good at screwing up interviews, so I can’t say that I am too excited. However, I am hoping that by thoroughly preparing this one will turn out differently, as it is for a different kind of opportunity.

My preparations will include studying. A lot of studying. I have to refine my knowledge of Colombia because a major part of the interview is grilling the applicant about their chosen host-country and why they want to teach in that country specifically. But beyond this, I also have to be able to explain the feasibility of my chosen project for civic engagement and portray my suitability to be considered an “ambassador” of the US while I am abroad (among other points of consideration). So yeah, I can’t say that I am not nervous. Once this step is finished, the committee will give me some pointers on how I can strengthen my essays and overall application, and lastly I will officially submit everything to Fulbright by the national deadline of October 14th.

On another note, I will have something else to be working on over the next month and a half. Something that I honestly wasn’t expecting to have to be working on at all. In the late spring, I submitted a poster proposal to NAFSA for their upcoming bi-regional conference in Portland, OR. NAFSA is an association of international educators in the US. It consists of university offices for study abroad and international student services, study abroad companies (like CAPA, CIEE, and SIT), international internship providers (like IE3 Global), ESL providers, organizations like PeaceCorps, and maybe even more groups of international educators that I don’t know about. I became a member of NAFSA to further integrate myself into the world of international education as it is the field I would be working in as an English teacher abroad. It also the field that I have the most experience in so far, since I have been working and interning in the study abroad office of my university for the past year.

Anyways. Their bi-regional conference is in November, which is for all of the international educators on the west coast (including Alaska and Hawaii). One of the components of the conference is the “poster session,” where presenters bring projects and such that they want to share with their colleagues in international education. They present in an exhibit hall, with posters, and the others at the conference go around the room observing their work and listening to their presentations. It is essentially like a science fair, but for international education instead of science.

Well, I submitted a poster session proposal for this conference several months ago to present a project of mine that centers on “first time effect” study abroad programs. An example of one of these programs is the Expedition Fellows Program that I helped to lead earlier this year. Programs like this focus on students who have had minimal (if any) international experiences. I can elaborate on my project and overall argument in a later post, possibly closer to the conference when I have done more work on it, but all in all, I recently got an email saying that my proposal had been accepted. Exciting, yes. But also intimidating, since my first participation in a NAFSA conference will be as a presenter. At least this way I get a discount on the registration fee!

Deadlines

My Personal Statement is in its final throes. By the end of the weekend it will have morphed into something Fulbright worthy. I was so excited this morning when I got an email from my Fulbright advisor saying that she was very impressed with my last draft. She gave me a few more tweaks to make, but I am finally beginning to feel confident about my application. 

I have started now on my Grant Purpose essay. Here is where I explain why I am applying for this opportunity, why I have chosen Colombia as my host country, as well as describe my proposed side project. I have sent my (very) rough draft of this essay to my Fulbright advisor for feedback on my ideas, so hopefully I will have a decent plan for it by the end of the day. Working on this essay will take up my most of my weekend. 

The deadline for my entire application is next Wednesday (yikes!). Close friends will be visiting us Monday evening through Wednesday morning, so considering this, my personal deadline for my essays is Monday evening. I know I won’t get much done with our guests around, especially since we will be celebrating their return to the US from their year-long residence in Norway. So I will just expect to be thrown from reality upon their arrival. 

I am still waiting on a couple of referrals to be submitted, as well. I hope that my referral providers will be able to finish their evaluations by the Wednesday deadline. If not, it isn’t a total loss. Luckily my Fulbright advisor said that it would be okay if one or two of my references were submitted a little late, as I was relatively late beginning the application process. Today I will send out another reminder email to ensure that my providers know the deadline is swiftly approaching. 

Sanctuary of Our Lady de Las Lajas in Colombia.