Assignment 21 - Anna Baskin

Last year, Mr. Wise introduced us to a program called NSLI-Y, a federally funded study abroad program for “critical languages” like Hindi, Mandarin, Arabic, and Turkish. I was hooked. I spent day, weeks, months, researching the language options, host countries, and career opportunities. I read every alumni blog, watched every YouTube video and religiously stalked the Facebook Q&A page. When I triumphantly submitted my application in the fall, I was certain that I knew what they were looking for – and that was me. Honestly, it was probably the first thing I had ever applied for, and I told myself I wouldn’t get it while deep down, hoping (expecting?) I would.

I didn’t. I was rejected in the first round of judgements, and looking back, it’s easy to see why. My essay were bland and unfocused, at best. They talked about loving cultures and using language skills to talk to people (duh). However, the rejection gave me a crucial reboot to my brain. I learned that I can’t just passively expect good things to happen to me; I have to work hard to obtain them. Over the course of the next year, I set goals for myself to improve my next application attempt: I would define why I wanted to learn Arabic, set career goals, research language opportunities, rededicate myself to Spanish (to prove my language retention skills). However, I’m happy to say now that my effort paid off in this year’s application and I will happily be studying abroad in Amman, Jordan this summer!

In the end, the rejection was for the best. I wasn’t ready to accept such a serious responsibility. Over the course of writing this year’s application I not only learned what it takes to create a good resume and write a good essay, but I learned about myself and what I want to do in life.