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Living The American Dream

myasmine.com

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Re: Living The American Dream

#61

Post by throawa »

rdtsc wrote: post #60
throawa wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overall I agree, it was a positive program, although with its own quirks and downsides. That said, my "issues" with it are: - That "task" was never clearly spelled out to mostly immature, 16 year old minors. The attached strings were slowly revealed much later into the deal. I don't want to call it a "bait-and-switch", but it does have many attributes of it. - There's no way to repay the State Dept for the expenses i…

Very good points. Yeah at no point in the process did they make that explicit, and that is unfortunate. And completely agree, someone should have the option to basically repay all the expenses associated with the 2 years and get a waiver in return. Heck, you have probably already repaid it many times over just by paying taxes and producing value in this country. Looking back at my experience I did actually do some of…

Ha, I should have realized you were an insider. :) Your timing was much luckier, since you had those 2 years built-in, although I'm not sure whether you got to skip a grade when you came back, or had to "downgrade" and sit those two years with lowerclassmen, while your classmates remained a grade ahead. That would have sucked.

Anyway, the fact that you also went back to the US after graduating validates my last point -- yet another "future leader" failed the "task". ;)

Re: Living The American Dream

#62

Post by rdtsc »

throawa wrote: post #61
rdtsc wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very good points. Yeah at no point in the process did they make that explicit, and that is unfortunate. And completely agree, someone should have the option to basically repay all the expenses associated with the 2 years and get a waiver in return. Heck, you have probably already repaid it many times over just by paying taxes and producing value in this country. Looking back at my experience I did actually do some of…

Ha, I should have realized you were an insider. :) Your timing was much luckier, since you had those 2 years built-in, although I'm not sure whether you got to skip a grade when you came back, or had to "downgrade" and sit those two years with lowerclassmen, while your classmates remained a grade ahead. That would have sucked. Anyway, the fact that you also went back to the US after graduating validates my last point…

> or had to "downgrade" and sit those two years with lowerclassmen

Good guess! Yap had to to that. But it was a fun time. I already knew all the material and didn't really have to work. Had more time to hack on my computer which is what I really wanted to do.

> yet another "future leader" failed the "task". ;)

True. Not much of a future leader more of a introverted nerd who likes to code. It worked out great for me though.

Re: Living The American Dream

#63

Post by pm90 »

jacques_chester wrote: post #20
famousactress wrote: post #6

Awesome story. We don’t get to choose what country we’re born in or what socio-economic status... It bums me out how few people (at least, in the US) seem to recognize this. It's such a lottery, and there's a big difference between pride and entitlement. The world would probably quickly get much closer to an actual meritocracy if this particular lottery ran closer to once-a-decade or so, instead of once-per-lifetime.

The birth lottery is stunningly important. Out of the several billion people I could have been, I was born in Australia, to intelligent and kind middle class parents. Really. My biggest single stroke of luck was to be born where I was born. Everything else is going to deeply path-dependent.

Couldn't agree more. Although I was born in India (which is not a developed country), I still think that I was lucky to be born into a middle-class college educated family. In India, there are kids who still die of hunger . From a very early age I realized that I could have just as easily been born into one of the many millions of poor families that make up half the country. It was indeed a pretty big stroke of luck

Re: Living The American Dream

#64

Post by eli_gottlieb »

autarch wrote: post #7

This seems like a good example of how screwed up immigration policies are in this country. We should be running out to other countries and actively recruiting people like her to immigrate here. She's smart, she's hard-working, and she's obviously incredibly motivated. But despite all this, the process of even getting a green card took a ridiculously long time. I really don't understand people knee jerk stance against…

I don't oppose immigration as such. I oppose labor arbitrage, which is one of the chief uses of immigration.

Re: Living The American Dream

#65

Post by sireat »

throawa wrote: post #16

Just wanted to share my story too (throwaway account). I first came to the US when I was 16 on a high-school "exchange" program, which was actually a one-way "exchange" (nobody went to my country from the US), sponsored by the US government in order by promote democracy, American way of life and thinking, etc., across the world, and especially in the former Soviet Union, where I was from. The American plan was to imm…

Fascinating story that rings true to my heart, but how did you manage to send out 200-300 applications and find the full ride? I remember applications costing money($30-50) in the early 1990s.

  My biggest regret in life is not having had a good advisor in choosing which colleges to apply to. Upon applying to college, I was being given reasonable advice as an American high-schooler in California when in fact I was in a very similar situation to yours(ex Soviet, exchange student, and so on).

 In the early 90s when I applied it cost money for college applications. I applied to Stanford, Harvard, UC Berkeley,UCLA and UCSB, because everyone else I knew was applying (I did not have access to Usenet just yet and there really were no other sources of information).

 I got accepted at UCs and got confronted with the fact that college would cost a small fortune for an out of state student that UCs considered me(and I was already working part time as a programmer for UCSB).
There were some smaller colleges which were sending me spammy letters, which I ignored, but actually they were quite decent colleges in retrospect (Harvey Mudd for one).

To this day I wonder what would have happened if I had managed to get a reasonable scholarship to one of the lesser known colleges.

Re: Living The American Dream

#66

Post by quadhome »

demallien wrote: post #34
Volpe wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> skilled migration is still an excellent pathway to Australian citizenship via permanent residency if you've got desirable skills. and fluency in English.

Of course. Do you really think that it is unreasonable to expect citizens of a democracy to be able to speak the language fluently? I'm an Australian living in France, and I have to demonstrate fluency in French, and I don't see this as unreasonable. If you have been living in a country long enough to be applying for citizenship, you damn well ought to be able to speak the language - if you can't it is because you ha…

No.

But, I'm bias in the opposite way.

The US doesn't have an official language. There is a free press with publications in almost every language. And, at least in the states I'm from (California and Washington), voting materials are translated into all the statistically significant languages found during the census. [1][2] (The Federal Government helps too. [3])

I live in Australia now. It's made very clear that English is the official language here. Different strokes for different folks.

[1] See: Voting Rights Language Assistance Act

[2] http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/vot/sec_203/activ_203.php

[3] http://www.eac.gov/voter_resources/voting_accessibility.aspx

Re: Living The American Dream

#67

Post by throawa »

sireat wrote: post #65
throawa wrote: post #16

Just wanted to share my story too (throwaway account). I first came to the US when I was 16 on a high-school "exchange" program, which was actually a one-way "exchange" (nobody went to my country from the US), sponsored by the US government in order by promote democracy, American way of life and thinking, etc., across the world, and especially in the former Soviet Union, where I was from. The American plan was to imm…

Fascinating story that rings true to my heart, but how did you manage to send out 200-300 applications and find the full ride? I remember applications costing money($30-50) in the early 1990s. My biggest regret in life is not having had a good advisor in choosing which colleges to apply to. Upon applying to college, I was being given reasonable advice as an American high-schooler in California when in fact I was in a…

Thanks! This was 96-97, applications were all free, except for the postage. There may have been some higher-end schools that required money, I probably didn't even consider those. My algorithm was to go through Kaplan's (or one of those) catalog of all US colleges and universities, request an info package from each college where it seemed I can get a full-ride, receive it a few weeks later, fill out the enclosed application, send it out.

I did some prior research into scholarships and didn't even consider top schools (Harvard, Stanford, etc.), as I knew there was no chance to get a full-ride with my credentials. I mostly focused on smaller regional colleges.

Re: Living The American Dream

#68

Post by madina_a »

rdtsc wrote: post #24
throawa wrote: post #16

Just wanted to share my story too (throwaway account). I first came to the US when I was 16 on a high-school "exchange" program, which was actually a one-way "exchange" (nobody went to my country from the US), sponsored by the US government in order by promote democracy, American way of life and thinking, etc., across the world, and especially in the former Soviet Union, where I was from. The American plan was to imm…

Thanks for sharing. Yeah the program was called Freedom Support Act. And you probably had a J-1 visa. That was a great program and I wish there were more of those kind of programs that would bring in kids from other regions of the world. It is unfortunate about the 2 year requirement for your particular case. Since it was a US govt. sponsored program they paid for your stay, travel and allowance while here. It was no…

Hello,

Nice meeting you here. I also came to the US as a Freedom Support Act exchange student in high school. I never went back to my home country, got accepted to a University, graduated and was out of status for a while. I married a US citizen and now I am dealing with a 2-year requirement. I applied for a waiver based on "no objection" from the home government. I received a favorable recommendation, but the exchange program wrote a letter to the Waiver Review Division stating that I violated the program and therefore go home. I can reapply basing my case on hardship or political asylum.. but my chances of winning are very slim. You mentioned in one of your posts about repaying the sponsor the amount that was spent? Could you please elaborate? I am in dire need of advice. Please e-mail me at madina_a@hotmail.com

Sincerely, M

Re: Living The American Dream

#69

Post by madina_a »

throawa wrote: post #16

Just wanted to share my story too (throwaway account). I first came to the US when I was 16 on a high-school "exchange" program, which was actually a one-way "exchange" (nobody went to my country from the US), sponsored by the US government in order by promote democracy, American way of life and thinking, etc., across the world, and especially in the former Soviet Union, where I was from. The American plan was to imm…

Thank you very much for sharing. I would like to ask you a few questions. Could you please e-mail me at madina_a@hotmail.com Thanks in advnce!

Re: Living The American Dream

#70

Post by [deleted] »

peripitea wrote: post #59
throawa wrote: post #16

Just wanted to share my story too (throwaway account). I first came to the US when I was 16 on a high-school "exchange" program, which was actually a one-way "exchange" (nobody went to my country from the US), sponsored by the US government in order by promote democracy, American way of life and thinking, etc., across the world, and especially in the former Soviet Union, where I was from. The American plan was to imm…

I'm assuming people have suggested this to you, but in case they haven't, I've heard of people getting a lot of traction by contacting (and having their citizen friends contact) their senator/congressperson.

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