My US experience felt like it was just yesterday. This is a major throwback where I can still remember every detail I've been through just to get this opportunity in my hand. It was tough but definitely worth it.
It was during my third year in college when our university gave us the opportunity to apply for a Cultural Exchange program or work overseas thru their partnered agency. We could choose whether we want to take our training hours working in a government agency here in the Philippines or join the overseas internship training or somewhat called Cultural Exchange-student program. I was glad that my parents supported me in this and allowed me to grab this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
I must say, the US embassy was the toughest and scariest interview I've encounter in this whole journey. If I remember it right, we had a total of four interviews: agency, employer, Skype interview with the host organization, and lastly the embassy interview. Together with all those interviews, we also need to process all the required documents needed and pay corresponding fees.
Anyway, we are given a chance to choose which state we want our internship training to be done in as long as we could pass the interview. Almost half of my batchmates choose Virginia, some went to South Dakota and other parts of the US but I decided to join my friend who decided to go to Utah - a state we're not familiar with or ever heard of before.
It took us almost half a year to process everything until January 2011 when everyone started flying to the US. I was one of the unlucky ones who flew late in the US but I'm still lucky enough to pass the embassy interview. To be honest, I was scared that I wouldn't make it, I thought I'm gonna disappoint my parents who believed and supported me all thru out but thankfully I was really blessed, they passed and gave me a visa. We were given a J1 visa for this internship with a maximum stay of four months in the country. You can learn more about it here.
I was happy, relieve, excited, and sad all at the same time until the day of my departure. Fast-forward to the months I'm in the US, I got to blog here the brief summary of my journey. It was one of the most unforgettable experiences that happened in my life that even after 6 years from that day I still remember it like it was just yesterday.
I would like to talk more about my experiences but I guess you just have to wait for another US blog post where I would clearly elaborate on every experience I've been through in the past four months in the country. For now, do enjoy this entry.
Recently, my university is starting to allow OJT/exchange student programs abroad and I so !!!!! because I missed the chance. I would have loved to spend a few months - or even weeks - abroad to study/intern. xx, Richel V.
ReplyDelete