Interview Aftermath

So my interview day arrived, and I’d say I did alright. I think I wasn’t inadequate nor perfect. It was actually not what I was expecting at all. I expected there will be at least 30 kids because of what I had heard was that AFS is the second largest for CBYX. My interview was held in New York. I was expecting a large group, but there were only 8 other applicants there. Matter of fact, if I remember correctly one didn’t even show up at all! I was the first one to arrive which I thought was a good sign. I was taken into an open conference looking area and waited about twenty minutes before the process began. The rest of the applicants began arriving as nine o’clock was getting closer. It was a bit awkward at first because we were just looking at each other for a bit. Then we slowly started asking each other questions like “What grade are you in?,” or ” What part of New York are you from?” The simple questions to build a conversation. Another big shock to me was how many seniors there were. The majority of the applicants were seniors, two sophomores(including me), and one freshman. Seeing how many seniors there were made me quite nervous because they had way more experience than I. They started talking about how many college interviews they had been to, and some of them had been to other exchanges programs. If I recall, there was one girl who had been to China on another exchange program. So after hearing all of their experiences, it made me really anxious and I began thinking I did not stand a chance at being selected as a finalist, nor an alternate. Moreover, the interview section was not that bad in my opinion, they asked me both hypothetical and situational questions. However, since I’m a fast thinker, I answered the questions right after the interviewers finished asking them. I recommend waiting at least 4 seconds after they ask you the questions even if you have your answer already processed. Since the interview is already finished, I have to wait until March or April to see if I will receive the scholarship or not. All I can do is pray now.

Until Next Time…

Cheers

Pre-Interview

So tomorrow is my time to shine. Tomorrow is my Interview and I’m super excited and really nervous at the same time. I don’t know what to expect at the interview. I don’t know if I will do horribly at the interview or be on fire at the interview. I’m really nervous, I personally feel that there will people who probably are more dominant than me. ;( However, I can’t think that way if I want to get into the program, and I really really want to get in the program. I have been doing research since I got the email that I was going to have an interview. Which feels like a major school project in my opinion. Moreover, I hope this interview goes really well and I’m able to show the best of my personality, and hopefully, they’ll like me.

If you have any advice, I’m all ears. But till next time…

Cheers!

CBYX AFS (Semi-Finalist)

I know that I’m a little late to the party, but I’m currently applying for a scholarship program called the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange. (CBYX) Just to give a short summary of it, the goal of this program is to let high school students (like myself) travel to Germany for 10 months to represent a U.S ambassador.(Same for Germany students to go to the U.S) It lets the student learn the German Cultural and language not only as a tourist but as an actual resident! The student learns the German Cultural and brings it back to the U.S to teach others about their discoveries, or what they learned. Moreover, it helps to strengthen the relationship between the U.S and Germany. This is a very competitive program because they only accept about 50 finalists per organization. Since I live in NY, I’m part of the AFS organization. While other organizations are CIEE (South East and Puerto Rico), ASSE (North West), FLAG (South West), and YFU (Mid US). Sorry if this sounds confusing, but it was about 2:00 in the morning when I wrote this.

Moving on, I began doing my application at the beginning of September, and submitted the first part of it around early December. This was great because the deadline was in mid-December. A month later, I got an email for my interview taking place in mid-February. At first, I was excited because I made it to the semi-finalist stage which is about half way there, and what I heard so far is that it’s actually very back-breaking to get to this stage. What I didn’t realize is how close I am until my face to face interview. The interview is about two weeks away, and all I can do is wait, dry-cleaned my clothes, watch videos on tips for my interview, and pray. I’m really nervous as these upcoming weeks go by, but I just hope for the best. I’ll be writing how my interview went, and hopefully giving good advice on what you can do to prepare for the big day.

Cheers!