“What do we got to lose?
Baby, throw your fears to the wind…” (Oattes, 1993)
Previous article: http://edukasi.kompasiana.com/2014/07/10/the-list-the-pots-the-wish-673076.html
Part 1: Waiting for Professor Picture’s Elusive Reply
I was so obsessed with Swiss. Who wouldn’t, by the way?
ETH Zurich is one among a few that consistently breaks US & UK domination on the top tier of university rankings. Moreover, simply typing Zurich, Basel, or Lugano on Google pops up captivating images…
[caption id="attachment_351313" align="aligncenter" width="629" caption="Zurich"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_351314" align="aligncenter" width="630" caption="ETH Zurich"]
Lugano
And, of course, no words needed to describe Swiss chocolate. No words, just drool… :p
The Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship is opened annually around August and closed around November. However, even just to obtain the application for, we are obliged to show either an acceptance letter from a Swiss university or, at the very least, an approval statement from a Swiss professor whom states his/her consent to become our research supervisor. Very efficient, isn’t it? The scholarship committee does not even bother to include those without university or professor’s acceptance into the selection pool. I was quite determined that, unlike 2012, this year I should at least make it into the selection phase. Since most university’s prerequisites include professor’s approval before applying to the Ph.D. program, it means I should contact Swiss professors.
At the time, I was pretty optimistic because I have found a professor whose research topic greatly matched my interest, as well as most of my academic publications. After reading several papers of his, I drove myself to write him an email. That was really my first time writing an email to a professor in order to ask his consent to become his Ph.D. student. By the way, let’s say this professor’s name is Professor Picture.
What did I write on my email to Professor Picture?
I introduced myself and my intention to study Ph.D. I described how his researches matched with my interest, my educational background, and my previous publications. I’ve always thought that there is a very thin line between a good promotion and a boastful elaboration of ourselves. I hoped that I had not crossed that line and stood on the wrong side. I mentioned his papers of my upmost interest, and, some says that this is not a good idea, I suggested what would be interesting further developments on those papers. I closed the email by saying that I would really like to study under his supervision.
Then I clicked SEND…
After the SEND button had been clicked, nothing but the wait began. It is typical for me that during the period while I am expecting for something, I would experience this loop:
repeat{
keep checking (and refreshing) Inbox
get suddenly excited to see Unread Mail (1)
immediately get disappointed to see the unread mail’s subject is: Fly to Bali Rp. 199,000
asking: did I write his email address correctly?
wondering: did I write the email politely? anything rude?
… did I REALLY click SEND?}
until I stop myself
When a week or so has passed, another loop is automatically activated:
repeat{
give me an answer, please!
rejection is fine, too
(it is NOT, actually)}
until I give up. #kByeThx
Part 2: My Problem, My Way
During that “Waiting for Professor Picture’s Elusive Reply” era, I became more informed (and more interested at well) about studying in the US, particularly under the Fulbright scholarship scheme. I must say that it was enormously encouraging to know a person who had been a Fulbrighter. I used to think that Fulbright had been like something next to impossible for me. In mycase, the person was a bright colleague of mine who was a faculty at the same department with me. I owe him so much, in the sense that he triggered me to think “I can”. I mean, if he had been able to qualify for the Fulbright scholarship, why should I not stand a chance, too? I heard in myself a voice… like your oldest friend, just trust The Voice Within (Aguilera, 2002).
I can’t deny the prestige of Fulbright (although one day I told a friend who had been living in the US for years, “Hey, I’ve got Fulbright scholarship!”, then she answered, “What is that?”… gurrrl, kByeThx), but what attracted me the most was the fact that “they” would help us applying to 5 universities. Before applying, “they” would have even considered our potential through our academic history, CV, test scores, etc. in order to find the universities that were within our league. (I did not even know who “they” were. Fulbright? AMINEF? Wait, were they even different?) I am kind of the person who often finds dealing with documents are tedious. Therefore, getting help for applying to 5 (yes, FIVE) universities for me was a great thing. It sounded like a “Buy 1, Get 5, Pay 0” promo.
It was around March 2013. Days were both crawling slowly and sprinting rapidly, if you know what I mean. They were crawling when I was expecting for Professor Picture’s reply. At the same time, they were somehow sprinting as well when I was thinking about the Fulbright deadline (April 15, 2013) that was lurking nearer day by day.
Most of the documents required for Fulbright submission were quite easy to obtain, like the copies of transcripts, certificates of degree, TOEFL result, etc. The most difficult requirements are, in exponentially increasing order of difficulty, CV, Study Objective, and Research Proposal.
*CV
My Problem: how to put “everything” into it without loolike like any of these: lengthy, a jumbled mess, boring, overly boastful, desperately seeking for attention.
My Way: I tried to partition my CV into distinct parts. For example, I made a “Publication” section, which I further divided into several sub-sections, such as: Theses, Book, Journal Papers, Refereed Conference Papers, etc. In my opinion, the partitions make it easier for readers to spot and check a specific part of my CV. Looking at my final CV, I wish I could have made it look more ‘integrated’, despite of the partitions I had made. Oh, by the way, no pictures or images allowed on CV, so don’t need to worry about background picture, cute decorative images, etc.
*STUDY OBJECTIVE
My Problem: what should I write? To be very honest, I only wanted to study, live, and travel abroad (which did not have to be USA). And, oh, to get that good-looking “Ph.D.” title, of course.
My Way: as much as I hate embellishment (I suddenly realized that the word ‘embel-embel’ in Indonesian language might stem from this English word), it was obvious that I could defiitely not state my objectives as bluntly as they actually were. Since I was working as a lecturer, I made it as the starting point for writing the objectives. I tried to comply the study objectives with the “Three Essential Obligations of a Lecturer (in Indonesia)”, i.e. teaching, research, and social contribution.
I tried to describe how this Ph.D. study (specifically in a US university and particularly under the Fulbright scholarship scheme) would support my performance in teaching, conducting research, and giving social contribution. I got the tip which suggested to mention specific professors of US universities whose research topics matched our interest.
For this study objective essay, there was a word limitation, i.e. no more than 500 words. In writing essays, I usually write the initial draft without thinking about that limit. I let all ideas be explored and flow into the writing, without filtering whether or not the ideas were really either important or impressive. If I remember correctly, my initial essay was completed at more than 800 words; which is 160% of the given limit.
Afterwards, I pruned the essay by cutting back unimportant ideas or lengthy sentences, merging sentences, compacting sentences, and rearranging the paragraphs. Of course, once you cut a sentence or two, you will need to ‘stitch’ back the remaining sentences into a seamless flow. Finally, after the length has been below the limit, do not forget to check for typos, misspelled words, grammatical errors.
*RESEARCH PROPOSAL
My Problem: I kept on telling myself, “Hmm… I’ll do this later”, until there was not enough time left to afford another “later”
My Way: I browsed through professors’ webpages to find their papers that matched my interest. Since I was mostly looking at the paper titles, I felt like I had found and downloaded enough papers as the resources for writing my proposal. Thus, for several weeks, I felt contentedly safe just by collecting the papers whose titles sound compatible with my interest. I had not read more deeply into those papers, because I believed that “later” never ceased to exist.
It went on that way until about three weeks before the Fulbright deadline (April, 15). I suddenly realized that reading papers, let alone understanding them and coming up with an idea for my own proposal, required a lot of time. I felt like… THUNDER! (East 17, 1994).
Come to think about the process of writing my research proposal, this comes up in my head and which becomes the title for Part 3: http://edukasi.kompasiana.com/2014/08/07/throw-your-applications-to-the-wind-pt-3-678631.html
If I Could Turn Back The Hands of Time (Kelly, 1998)
