My Fulbright Experience in USA
- Dec 12, 2015
- 2 min read
http://u.osu.edu/ahmad.179/my-fulbright-experience-in-usa/
My Fulbright Experience in USA
It has always been a dream for me to participate in some research program in USA. I applied for Fulbright award in Pakistan. It was a hard competition from which I get through and finally received the Fulbright award letter on a sunny day of April 2013. That day was one of the wonderful day in my life, I enjoyed that day with my family. Still a lot of journey have to travel before I actual fly for USA. It took almost one year for me in my country to pass through all formalities. I will always remember March 17, 2014 when my dream comes true and I started my travel to USA along with my family. I was the first member in my family that was going abroad for the purpose of research in USA. These were excited moments for me and my family. Excited about making new friends, working in new environment with fellow scientists of different cultures. At the same time there was a feeling of home sickness and going away from my parents, friends and relatives. Some of these sentiments were definitely more rational than others, but all of them fly through my mind as I start my travel to USA.
I feel it’s a good opportunity for Fulbrighters travelling to USA to learn in a multicultural environment. During the grant period, I got opportunity to meet new people, enjoyed to work and live them and learnt a lot about their cultures. During my stay in USA, we often shares our daily experiences, thoughts, feelings and emotions. This provide me an opportunity of direct interaction on an individual basis in the research labs, field, home, and in routine tasks, allowing us to gain an appreciation of others’ viewpoints and beliefs, the way they do things, and the way they think. Participation in community functions and activities was valuable for me to interact with host country people on a one-to-one basis in an atmosphere of openness, academic integrity, and intellectual freedom, thereby promoting mutual understanding.
During my stay in USA, my host supervisor motivates me and support me to participate in cultural activities, educational seminars, conferences and lectures. This embodied me a self confidence to understand people of other cultures having different mindsets. The very first event that I attended was a Fulbright gathering of north Ohio chapter in Columbus. It was an amazing event and provides an opportunity to Fulbrighters of that region to meet each others and with the President of Ohio State University, share their novel ideas with each other’s and plan for future collaborations.
I can sum up with following words “Its a wonderful program that provides an opportunity to scholars of different nationalities to work in multinational environment and understand each other”.
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