Source: www.mayhewinternational.org
In
roughly two weeks, I set off for my longest adventure yet. Previously, I have
been fortunate enough to do home stays in Spain and Costa Rica; a year later, I
received a study grant to live and study in Italy the summer before I went to
Pitzer College. While at Pitzer, I lived in Beijing and Botswana (whose stories
you can find in this blog). Now I am headed to Nepal on a Fulbright Scholarship.
Before
receiving the packet that listed every country to which the Fulbright sent
people, I thought I was dead set on Nepal. I had chosen between it and Botswana junior year for study
abroad and was only swayed by my cousin Francesca who had just returned from
working in Sub-Saharan Africa. But when I opened the Fulbright booklet, I
became like a kid in a candy shop, wanting everything! I stared at the lengthy
list of countries and realized that it would be much quicker to create a list
of countries that I wouldn’t want to go to rather than make a list of those I
did. It was done before I even picked up a pen, none. I could come up with
viable reasons for why I would want to go to every country. But, I began
reading the provided bios and was quickly able to eliminate many countries.
Countries like Mongolia where applicants needed to be prepared for “harsh
weather and development issues” (read: stuck inside a poorly insolated house
for a Siberian winter) were quickly ruled out. After peeling through the pages,
it finally came down to a few things:
1)
I wanted to go to a country, and for that matter,
a region I had yet to experience.
2)
I wanted to live with a host family. It is not
only the best way to develop one’s language skills, but also the best way to integrate
oneself into the host culture.
3)
I wanted to have a legitimate chance to get
chosen. That meant I had to give myself some sort of competitive shot at going.
It meant not applying to places as
an undergrad like Hong Kong, who only has two research grants and I would be
competing against people who were doing their PhD dissertations. This also
falls under that category that Nigel Boyle (who oversees the entire Fulbright
process at Pitzer), said not to apply to - any place that plays cricket, because
the odds are some of the worst by far. Places like the West Bank with only two
slots for teaching were also left out due to the sheer number of applicants who
applied.
With that criteria, some trips to
the library (yes people my age know what books are), and talking with several
of my friends who attended the Pitzer in Nepal program for study abroad, the
decision was solidified. Then the fun process of applying and the torturous
waiting game began. But I will get into that in further post.
As always, please feel free to ask
any question or suggest topics that you want me to cover, or give me advice.
Vincent
