Tag Archives: Fulbright

The (Last) First Day of School

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Welcome back, Scripps! To all students, I hope you’re excited for your classes and are looking forward to the semester! The start of fall semester is really something special. Unlike the spring semester, it is a start of a whole new beginning. Coming fresh from summer, it’s a chance to bring those experiences back to campus and reconnect with the community. I thought I would be a little less flustered at the start of my senior year, but instead I lost my ID while moving in and I accidentally locked myself out of my suite on the first day of class. But starting senior year reminded me of a certain story about my first week at Scripps.

As a first-year, I went to a Fellowship Informational Session during the first week of school. 18-year-old me had decided to go to as many things as possible on campus and learn about all the opportunities available. At this point in time, I only really remembered the names of the girls in my hall and had started remembering where my classes were. Tiny conquests like that helped me adjust to college.

But 18-year-old me was really good at overwhelming herself (so is current soon-to-be-22-year-old me). I remember stepping into Vita Nova Hall, greeted by a sign in sheet. Maybe two dozen or so names were on the list before mine, but as I scanned the lines to write my own, the last column made my stomach lurch. Every other student in that room was graduating in 2013. I immediately thought, what am I doing here? All these students are seniors, and I’m just a first-year… Should I not be here? I mean, I just want to learn about these opportunities… Right?

I awkwardly sat near the exit and felt temporarily at ease, until Professor Edwalds-Gilbert started the presentation. The presentation included the descriptions, requirements, and timelines for a number of fellowships such as the Watson, Fulbright, Napier, etc. I left about 20-minutes in to the presentation and headed straight back to my room, but decided to stop and gather myself on the bench by the huge tree on Jaqua Quad.

The overwhelming feel kept escalated in my head, I was shaky and even a teary eyed, and at the time, I couldn’t put together why. I had just gotten to college, eager to take in as much as I could, and then immediately I felt like I was out of place, like I could never possibly pursue those opportunities after graduating.

Well, here I am now, the last first day of school, when three years ago, I couldn’t tell you what I wanted to major in let alone what career path I wanted, and that was okay.

Looking back on that story, I was scared. I was scared of the possibilities of what could be my future, and that overwhelmed me, especially since I wasn’t even completely comfortable at Scripps yet. But I take a few important things away from that experience; I must always discover what could be, by always feeding my curiosity and putting myself out there. Searching for those opportunities seems daunting at first, but throughout my time at Scripps, I have sought other experiences that have accumulated and empowered me with the confidence needed to take the next steps during my senior year in preparing for after graduation.

The Watson Fellowship Informational Session is this week on Thursday, September 4th at 3 PM in the Lang Art Building, Room 221, and I plan on attending.

So during these first few weeks of school, I encourage you to look back and see how far you’ve come. Whether you’re a first-year or a senior, your hard work has paid off to get you to where you are now. The bumpy roads are always rough, but you’ve learned more about yourself for it. I know I have! From getting accepted to Scripps and my last first day of school, first-year me would be really surprised to know what I’ve accomplished and see where I am today.

Rejection and Opportunity: The Senior Struggle is Real

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For most of you it is February going on March. For anyone who is a senior, I’m sure you’ll agree when I say that it feels more like it’s February going on May. Every day feels like it’s the end, and yet you can’t help but revel in memories of when you encountered this day at Scripps for the first time four short years ago. It’s a beautiful schizophrenia we live in as seniors. I’m coming to learn, however, that spring of senior year in college feels a lot more bittersweet than it did in high school. Around this time in high school, we all knew that we had gotten into Scripps and choose to attend. We had planned next steps, and we could truly relax and enjoy our final moments in high school.

In college, however, I’m coming to find that senior spring can be one of the most stressful semesters of your college career. Yes, I am really excited about graduating and moving on to that next chapter in my life, but for some, including myself, just finding the title to this next chapter, let alone what its contents will be can be sickening. And let somebody ask me one more time about what I’m doing after graduation… I can’t even finish the thought.

We’re all either applying for jobs and fellowships, and hearing back, or in some cases, not hearing back. And it is this latter part that can really start to eat away at one’s self-confidence…especially if our peers are fairing far better in landing post grad opportunities.

Unfortunately, rejection is a part of life that we’re not trained how to handle well. So for this week’s blog post, I wanted to help students think about alternative ways to view and handle this daunting new chapter ahead. This is dedicated to all my seniors in the struggle.

It was January 28th around 3pm that I got the email. I could have opened it the minute I saw it, but my finger just lingered over my phone screen, paralyzed with fear.  If this email did not have what I wanted to see, what I had planned so hard to see, then the perfect two year plan that I had devised for myself was about to become the next four months of chaos.

Dear Daysha,

We regret to inform you…

Ah. The infamous “We-regret-to-inform-you” speech, the equivalent of the other wildly unpopular “we-need-to-talk” speech in dating (but for professional opportunities), was staring me back in the face like that dreaded text message from your soon-to-be ex.

It was a hard blow to take to my ego but, interestingly enough, I was not angry that I did not receive a Fulbright. It actually felt weird knowing how ok I was. That’s not to say that I did not want it, but as Michelle Bauman, a CMC alumna who was also the keynote speaker for the Women and Leadership Alliance conference last Friday, would say, maybe this rejection was delivered to me as a gift.

In her speech, Bauman, executive turned motivational coach, dared us to rethink the purpose behind the rejections we receive in life. “If the challenge were here for you, not against you,” she asked, “a gift brought here only for the purpose of serving you, what is the opportunity? What is the gift to grow?”

Applying Bauman’s question to my own life, I think that I was not meant to get the Fulbright because I think I am actually meant to take the next year off to devote to my writing. It was an idea that I had been toying around with prior to hearing back from Fulbright, but I was terrified of actually doing it. As Scripps students, I think that it can feel daunting to go a non-traditional route after graduation when we’re constantly bombarded with pressure from our families and society to get a “real” job.

However, as Bauman so eloquently stated in her speech, “we have to look for the opportunities where we fold up like a pretzel… and use it as an opportunity for growth; an opportunity for transformation.” For me that came in the form of a playwriting competition, which I can proudly say I won, and has only reinforced my decision to do a self-designed writing fellowship (self-designing…such a Scrippsie, right?) So I would say if there’s something that you’ve been pondering about doing post-graduation, but it scares you. It forces you to step outside yourself and take a risk, then do it. If you’re wildly successful at it, you’ll be forever grateful that you took the risk. But if it doesn’t go as planned, remember that there is a gift there for you begging to be opened and put to use.

Taking a breath

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Hey all! Greetings from the sunny pastures on the other side of my fellowship applications. Absolute hand-wringing, nail-biting, panic-attack-inducing stress has given way to a blissed-out and placid sense of completion. I turned in both my Watson and Fulbright applications today, and though I don’t pretend to be an expert on either application – especially since I don’t know whether I’ll make it past the first round of selections for either one – I have some tips to help you all if you choose to undertake these in the future.

  1. Give yourself time. This is so easy to say, and so easy to ignore. I don’t even like writing it, because it sounds so condescending – of course you need to give yourself time, you’re thinking. Why are you even writing this, Rose? However, I know all too well the dangers of setting aside an entire evening – not to mention a regular date every evening – for writing, only to find that you productively procrastinate by doing everything but what you set out to accomplish. It’s one thing to have a night off – these are necessary and can be hugely recharging. It’s quite another to have a document full of ideas and the time to develop them into applications, only to think Well, I have a month. I’ll worry about this tomorrow. I don’t even know where to start. If I do this tomorrow/over the weekend/after talking to my (adviser/professor/friend). I got sucked into this spiral – waiting until a weekend I was on RA duty to write and subsequently not getting much done; waiting until I spoke with every professor I could think of, several times, about the nuances of the application; waiting until genius struck. In the end, you have to buckle down and write. The only way out is through, and at some point in the past little while I grasped that, sat down, and wrote out the worst, most disjointed text I’ve ever written. Draft gave way to draft, and I feel really good about what I turned in. Which brings me to my next point…
  2. Use the writing center!! It is incredible! I visited the WC as a first-year, bringing in my Writing 50 and Core papers, but didn’t realize that I could go to them for fellowship help as well. Many of the tutors have helped seniors – seniors who have gone on to receive the fellowships for which they applied – and are experts at clarifying and reorganizing ideas. Seriously, all – I went in with a disjointed outline and left an hour later with a clear game plan that became a compelling and (at least I think) unique statement of grant purpose.
  3. Use the resources available to you, but stop if they’re stressing you out. This is key if you’re like me and think you need to follow every opportunity offered you whenever one is presented. This meant I ran over to the library yesterday and searched through the binder containing Scripps students’ past Fulbright-winning applications. My research helped me focus my ideas, gave me a few ideas for how to make my essay stand out, and induced a massive panic attack that lasted the rest of the night and well into the morning. Whenever someone advises reading something and then forgetting about it, I (inwardly, hopefully) roll my eyes and scoff – forget about something so potentially helpful! Yeah right! After yesterday, though, I think I finally understand what’s meant by this advice. Use what you can to your advantage, to be sure. That’s why it’s there. But when it begins to stress you out – and it’s likely to do so – step back and remember how you felt before reading it. Hopefully you were confident about your proposal and sold on the ideas you wanted to convey. Remember that feeling. Remember that just because a winner opened their statement with a great question, or closed with the perfect life plan, or described their millions of years of teaching experience (English Teaching Assistant-specific here, sorry), doesn’t mean your application is weaker because you don’t do the same thing. Avail yourself of these opportunities, but only once you feel confident in what you yourself have written.
  4. Talk it out! Again, the easiest thing to say. Had I not gone to the writing center, though, I wouldn’t have thought to discuss some of the reasons that make me uniquely qualified for the fellowships for which I applied. I forget, sometimes, that not everyone grew up doing x, y, or z; that not everyone had the same experience abroad; that not everyone saw the letter ß in a music book and decided to learn a language because of it. What makes you weird? What makes you light up and bores your friends when you talk about it? Write about that, because your words will convey the passion you feel.

Signing off now so I can work out, do laundry, and all those other little things that fall by the wayside when I get stressed. Happy start of the week, and to all the seniors and post-grads who sent in their applications – great work!

 

Some Memes to Lighten the Mood

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Hello all! This week instead of getting into anything too heavy, I thought I’d get creative and make a memes for your enjoyment. Those of you who are Middle Eastern Studies majors, who applied to fellowships, or who are in a similar point in their career search will understand especially well. I’ll let the crying lady, successful kid, and grumpy cat do the talking.

Edward Said, who’s monumental work identifying and unpacking the concept of Orientalism, hugely important to Middle Eastern Studies among other disciplines, comes up again and again in essentially every class I take. You can’t get away from Said, and by sophomore year it had become a joke between my Middle Eastern Studies friends.

Anyone who used the Fulbright Embark Online Application has to understand grumpy cat’s frustration.

And anyone who’s ever had a resume understands how darn time consuming it is to get them formatted perfectly.

That’s all for now folks. I hope my memes made you smile! I’d love to see any of your memes related to the job/internship hunt or anything else. If you’ve never made one before, try it–it takes all of 30 seconds. Have a great week.

Writing Resumes in Bulgaria

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“Ivan Vazov” Foreign Language High School, Smolyan, Bulgaria

My 12th graders have a huge range of goals, some are pursuing university in Bulgaria, while others will head to universities in the UK or Germany. An equal amount expect to go straight into the work force, domestically and abroad. A couple have expressed interest in the military.

As I was brainstorming for lesson plans, there was one writing assignment that stood out as being useful for every single one of them: resume writing.

I took the things I’ve learned from CP&R over the years, borrowed some tips and tricks from their page on the Scripps website, and adapted it for presentation to my high school students. We were able to practice work-related verbs and appropriate tenses (the difference between “filing documents” and “filling documents”). There was a lot of “what is it called in English if you are someone who does XYZ.”

My co-teacher and I printed out and distributed the “EuroPass” CV form, a common form used by employers throughout Europe. After having discussed the components and important parts of resume-writing the week before, we gave them the 45-minute class period to fill out the form and hand them back for evaluation.

Having an actual form in front of them allowed for more specific questions and gave us a space to problem-solve some of the issues unique to them. There’s no name for the qualification you have upon graduating high school in Bulgaria that would be equivalent to “high school diploma,” so they were unsure what to write on the line for “title of qualification.” We went over the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, so they would know how to self-assess and report their language skills on their CV.

Most students here don’t have part-time or summer jobs, as their aren’t an abundance of jobs to go around. There weren’t even any babysitters in the group, as families here generally can’t afford to hire them. With this in mind, we thought about how they can interpret the experiences and occasional job they do have for use on a resume. Among my group we had a class representative, a freelance sports writer, Guinness World Record-holding bagpiper, and mushroom factory worker.

Even if they never need to write a CV or resume in English, I hope the exercise of thinking about their strengths, abilities and experiences will be helpful wherever they scout for jobs. And for those of my students who will be applying to jobs and universities abroad, this was a good start for them to think about how they represent themselves on applications in another language.

How do I know it was a success?

Other teachers heard about the lesson, and asked me to work through it with their classes as well. When suffering from culture shock and trying to survive the first year of teaching, there’s nothing better than the feeling that you’ve done something right. Many thanks to CP&R for teaching my resume-writing skills. Now I can pay it forward.