On March 9, 2017, a dream of not only mine but my ancestors was achieved. I was accepted to the competitive program that is sending only 6 students to Mexico City, Mexico this coming fall, for a summer/fall study and internship opportunity sponsored by the Business Foundations Program I am also a part of. This incredible program brilliantly matched my academic and professional goals, as it allows me to complete my BFP certificate (the summer portion includes an accelerated finance course and I will take my remaining requirements in the fall), places me in a relevant internship, and of course allows for all manner of personal improvement in cultural and professional awareness.
Below are my application essays, for the curious and perhaps those looking for examples to succeed in their own study abroad goals:
Essay A:
I am a UT Austin sophomore (junior in hours) studying Advertising Management, Business Foundations, and Digital Arts and Media. Prior to being accepted to Advertising, I pursued Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. As such, I am intensely fascinated by virtual/augmented reality and impossibly excited that I will enter my chosen field just before it is predicted to become the next “big thing” (the last being the internet). As this program involves placement into an internship, I intend to find one among the many possibilities city-wide (from contacts provided by a heavily tech-oriented host university) that incorporates this excitement for VR/AR; whether that be from the marketing, business, design, or computer science side. Given my multidimensional interests, it will not be hard to find a suitable company to learn from. With an internship abroad under my belt, I hope to use the experience to find another internship or job related to VR/AR–as it applies to advertising–back in the US. I am also interested in completing my Business Foundations Certificate by taking my remaining required classes abroad, as suggested by the program. Besides career goals, I am excited to take my first steps out of the US and into an international hotspot of culture, especially one that I’ve heard beautiful stories of for years. I also intend to use this opportunity to prove to myself that despite a disastrous first year and early GPA at UT (induced by medical issues, the death of close family members, and unfortunately much more), I am ready to take on not just a new day but the entire world.
I have completed 5 years of study of the Spanish language and in fact won a bronze medal from the National Spanish Exam. Therefore, with the completion of the required “UT-taught online international learning seminar” and attendance at the upcoming Mexico Global Professional Training Conference, I feel more than capable of interacting with my peers at ITESM in Mexico City and thus learning both culturally and academically from them. I would then of course not only understand Mexican culture better, but learn and practice involvement with a diverse group of peers–which would prepare me for leadership and teamwork in future job positions. This would, indeed, be the next big step in my ongoing effort to improve my leadership capabilities–which I have begun work on this past year through participation in Leadership Week, The CHANGE Institute, and Leadership Coaching, as well as officer-ship in the Jester East Residence Hall Council and the National Residence Hall Honorary. That is to say, while I can communicate well enough through writing and speaking both in English and Spanish, I would relish the chance to further develop my oral skills in both languages, especially in a team or leadership context.
Other than these language and leadership qualifications (and my lack of a criminal record of any sort), I would be a great representative of UT in Mexico primarily because of my relentless drive. Since my aforementioned horrible first year here, I have worked tirelessly everyday to better myself professionally and personally–and to restore my good academic record. I have joined countless organizations, rising to leadership positions in multiple and making heavy time commitments to each. I have also sought out every opportunity to hone my skills and expand my professional repertoire: attending the seminars above as well as many others unmentioned, performing my officer roles to the utmost capacity, and being accepted not only to a competitive major but two competitive certificate programs. I have achieved a lot this past year, and hope to have the opportunity to continue this highly motivated work in the fall of 2017, in Mexico City.
Essay B: Scenario B
In the past I have tended to not discuss politics often, feeling that no matter how much I learn about situations I will never have each side’s full story (being able only to truly experience my own) and thus could easily seem ignorant or even accidentally promote ignorance on a given topic. However, since my host country will be Mexico and much of our recent foreign policy has centered around generally pejorative interactions with this country, I would be obligated–to say the least–to learn what I could from my new friends about their (likely poor) attitudes toward recent governmental actions.
The best way to prepare, and avoid my above fears of ignorance, would be to research thoroughly and stay updated on each new interaction between the US and Mexico, especially the reasoning behind each side’s actions. For example, I am currently enrolled in a Government class that discusses an “In the News” segment each week. On this segment, the professors often display clips of President Trump and President Enrique Pena Nieto of Mexico, so that our sources are direct and we get the entire initial and unbiased story. We then analyze what they said, especially about the other, and try and find the motivation behind each of their positions. At the liberal college campus of UT, the consensus is generally to support immigrants to our country no matter what, and similar worldviews. However, it is important to look into why some people off campus may disagree. To this purpose, our professors also showed a clip of thousands of blue-collar workers in an American company being laid off despite recent increased performance, so that their jobs could be relocated to a new Mexican facility to cut costs. Although this worked well for the corporate sector and the liberals on campus who support moves toward free trade, thousands of Americans were suddenly and without warning fired for reasons outside of their control. Putting oneself in their shoes, it is abundantly easy to see why these people might support Trump’s campaign platform, which included harsher trade deals with Mexico. Although they might slightly raise the price of some products here, it would (more importantly for them) likely result in the return of their jobs or the creation of new ones for them, ie restore their ability to provide for their families.
This example shows how important it is to know everyone’s stake on the political stage, and to be able to empathize with people even if their desires and plans are very different from yours (in other words, both improved trade and more jobs are great goals, and the supporters of each both have good points).To that end, I would suggest laying out a few rules before any political conversation between my new friends and I got really underway. We would have to agree to listen to each other and not interrupt until everyone felt they had gotten their point across the way they’d like to. I say this because it takes me, for example, longer to phrase something exactly how I’d like in conversation than it does for someone else to interrupt and overpower my opinion with their rushed–and frequently inflammatory–one based on my half-response.
We would also have to agree that if anybody got emotionally involved in the discussion to the point of undue stress, that it would be terminated and we would go on like before the conversation started with no hard feelings. If we could not agree on this, we simply couldn’t discuss politics while in this specific friend group, as we would not be mature enough for it to be productive. Additionally, there would have to be a mutual understanding among all of us that having a certain political disposition does not make you a bad person. It is a result of your experiences: often fully defensible, and always subject to change. It would be important to remind everyone however, that the goal is to not change the mind of everyone you disagree with, but to learn from their position and share your own so that one or both of you may grow.
I was thankfully awarded some scholarships for this travel (although it costs less than a semester spent on the UT campus), and recently received the Gilman Scholarship in particular. That scholarship includes a promotional component, ie once I complete my study abroad experience using it I must find some way to tell others about the opportunities the Gilman affords. In my essay I wrote about how this would be achieved by traveling back to my high school in New York. However most applicants, I learned in a workshop, fulfill this requirement by writing a blog about their experiences.
I have been in Mexico City for about 6 weeks now (I am writing this segment as of August 24, 2017) and have experienced so much already that I’ve found it is just too hard to summarize here. I have been keeping a thorough journal though, so once I have some time after I return to the States I will pick some of the best anecdotes and cultural revelations and publish them here. The pictures so far are amazing, but I’ll save those as well for now and submit a comprehensive gallery upon my return.
I return to this now that I’m settled back into my usual academics in the US. I have an extraordinary amount of cultural analysis and some amazing stories in the aforementioned journal, that I intend to publish and will link to here once I have. To wrap up here for now, I’ve linked to a presentation I had to complete upon my return. It is geared toward high school students, but all the photos throughout and in the gallery at the end are some of my best and representative of the wonders I experienced. Here is An American Abroad. Later I’ll add the gallery here and dissolve the link chain.