okay no so now we'll be starting our session uh thank you very much all of you for joining us and first I'll give you a brief introduction of what PDM is BDM is Pakistan development movement working for the development and empowerment of Pakistani Youth and PDM is currently working on several projects for those projects PDM is conducting informative sessions and all of these sessions are free but uh then I'll be sharing the details Bank Account Details with you after this so moving on uh our tod
ay's session is on the scholarship opportunities uh USA is offering to Pakistani so for that we are pleased to have uh Alina with us thank you Alina for joining us Elina could you just please introduce yourself and uh share with us the challenges and your experience journey of being a full bright scholar uh B first thank you so much for doing this work this is really important I think especially opportun we should absolutely democratize it make sure the most number of people get access to these
opportunities limited so I really appreciate you all hosting these sessions doing this work for free making it accessible I think it's really important um as you said my name is Al for chrisan graduation literature or philosophy May double major I was also a gold medalist and then in I graduated in 20 18 or 19 I forgot and then Master uh and then I received the scholarship in October so deadline February normally it's about March April and then interview then oob I was um awarded the scholarship
for 2020 to 2022 unfortunately because of co uh most people I think 99% of my cohort actually was not able to go so based you know so I finished my masters in philosophy through the full bite scholarship and I graduated May of uh 2022 from the University of Georgia it's a public institution in Athens Georgia and then I really loved what I was doing um and I wanted to continue so I actually ended up applying for a PhD program and and then started my PhD immediately after yeah great so uh Alina c
ould you just take us through your journey of being full bright and uh what were the eligibility requirements what was the procedure and everything so it got really difficult but now it's different I myself don't have a very good G score I think which is not very good um but 145 145 yeah 175 175 something like this um so if my internet gets a little bad 300 minimum 290 I think minimum with 145 in verbal 145 in math section and then uh of course you have the personal statement your study objectiv
es these are the two main essays and of transcripts letters of recommendation you know I always recommend if you have work experience academ professional otherwi expi professional guy but that of course depends on your um your sort of field of study as well as your work experience as well uh could you just give me a second I think the internet's being a bit of a problem just a second sure sure sorry about that I think uh that should be a little bit better okay so as I was saying application requ
irements transcripts [Music] or Bachelor sorry Master but either way 16 years is required to apply 16 years of education equivalent to that um is required to apply for the full right domicile form you know things like that that are kind of small but more importantly important which is your essays so your life story what you're passionate about uh something that really tells the other person and then what I think is a little bit more important is your study objective mostly treat as a personal st
atement it's not it's supposed to be more about specific field of study purs so for example lawyer for example human rights human rights studes expen with this specific degree so these are some of the very important things and another recommendation I would have is I know January already start working on your essay or drafts so especially previous full Scholars a lot of them on LinkedIn actually have um you know open up posts guid they can actually look at your essays and then feedb okay great s
o Al what do you think USA opportunities offer pakist like okay okay full bright scholarship is one of them is what do you think or opportunities what courses you believe what degree programs you believe are more in demand so in in that's a great question that's the only scholarship available and that's not true but there are definitely options for example Stanford University scholarship night Hennessy night Hennessy really good scholarship fully funded for PhD and Masters different describe and
none of them can be synonym so you can't say I'm kind and generous right or like even related it has to be very different adjectives and once you actually sit down and think about it you're like okay these are important things on genuity sort of understanding of yourself confidence so that's a really good scholarship that I always recommend to people again it's for a wide for like wide degree um programs I think Law Public Policy uh history geography philosophy all all kinds of things right and
PhD then another one that people don't know about is nework New York University York City scholarship it's specifically called the ffi scholarship I think scholar um Dono are wonderful wonderful amazing women whove done incredible work one of them was in journalism I think one was in English literature or field of study Far Eastern studies and it's also fully funded so all of those things dollar it's not just the adds up to be a lot so there's definitely a lot of scholarships available especial
ly regarding just you know n fully funded Harvard is a good example Harvard qualif they will meet your need financially meet so you can go and study at Harvard and a lot of other universities have programs like that so again it's one of those things especially interest sort of work experience and professional experience keeping all of that in mind really really helps apart from that as for you asked a really good question what sort of programs do you recommend so Pakistan to go to a PhD thankful
ly in the US that's not true so you can go direct unless and I was very confused so I had to like understand so for example for example computer science instead of going for a masters USA funded mostly like fully funded at least you can go directly for a PhD so phds are funded 99% of the time in the US and they're funded by something called an assistantship research assistant teaching assistant or graduate assistantship generally so for example undergraduate student asach as instructor so for ex
ample $20,000 and apart from that whatever I need to do right so it's a great deal you get a free degree essentially not even free you get you get paid to study and also teach right it's great experience and for example if you're a CS graduate you go to this University exam yeah if you don't want to do that just do the PHD directly five years PhD and then you're set and it's fully funded you get work experience publication experience uh lab experience if your field is something like that project
experience as well and then you're set for a really gooder for technical Fields stem Fields particular us stem deges CP which means if you can secure a job then you have two years of extended stay in the US especially get a job apply immediately for H1B Visa get work approval get work sponsorship and you can stay there as well otherwise and you can see usak you can get a really good job here as well so there's a myriad of possibilities opportunities it all depends on your specific degree progra
ms and your specific sort of interests and whether you want to do a PhD or a master's even though I would always recommend a PhD greata so one last question you're a full bright scholar so what do you think if full bright scholar Co obviously they don't allow you to stay in the USA after like completing your education this enney no that that's a great question as well um so it makes sense that you have to come back it it can also be kind of problematic for example I was able to apply for F1 and
everyone who goes you have to do that requirement and frankly and there's you know there's ways around it and there's ways to for example foro it um God forbid if something happens or permanently then for can wave it for you right God forbid they can wave it for you if you have a child in the US right then they can wave it for you I'm not saying do that like have a child just to say us or whatever but there are there are options I would say um to consider one of the biggest ones is that people l
ove to do is getting an internship or a job at something like the UN I know some people again very very brilliant people United Nations or I think World Bank IND organizations United Nations The Internship offer so she was able to stay Beyond her program there was no other way around it but she was able to stay for I think six months more or maybe a year more because of her internship with the United Nations so if you get a job with the UN or some amazing like organization like that then yes it'
s possible but otherwise you have to come back and it's very reasonable yeah yeah it makes sense so uh thank you Al butw question uh you're free to ask yes ibraim I would like to know that can we choose our own universities or in full bright they give you some universities from their own database that's a really good question thank you for asking appc don't be it is a bad thing you have the option to give three or five University selections okay for example if uh you want to apply for I don't kn
ow an MA in philosophy that's what I did right so best university I think there is no guarantee that fbde will actually give you those universities because you have to actually be accepted to those universities to make sense right but fbite can keep them into consideration in my experience everyone who has mentioned their preferences it has been taken into account so a lot of my friends masalah masalah they applied um to fbite with me they got it and they also we were in the same coh they did no
t do what I Didia Harvard NYU uh a lot of IV league and top tier universities choose and they got it so a lot of my friends ended up going to columia or NYU or Harvard or like these good good universities as well um so it's an option it of course at the end of the day will depend on how strong your application is how strong your overall profile is and how um I IIM do you want to ask another question yeah I have another question may I ask go ahead like for me like I'm a bachelor student I will be
finishing my bachelor's next year I would like to know that is it is it a good idea to continue like to apply for for directly into a PhD for a five years program or should I apply should I or would you recommend me to apply for a masters and then go for PhD like what's the best like to maximize my chances of getting the scholarship but in the long run I want a PhD okay you do want a PhD that's that's always my first question is always then of course just do a masters but if you want a PhD then
I would recommend go apply straight to a PhD now it depends do you have Publications do you have conferences do you have projects or you know thesis or written work to show that you're for example a really good scholar PhD level so all of that will sort of take into account whether I would recommend that you apply for a PhD or not but of course it it's at the end of the day it's going to be up to you as I said before USA Masters are not always funded so 40% 30% which is not a lot because 30% or
parttime job you know because you can only do parttime job as a student 20 hours assistants master just from that perspective alone it's a better decision to go for a PhD because phds are almost always more funded that being said they're also more competitive because not only are you competing with people with bachelor's degrees you're also competing with people who have master's degrees who have Publications conferences work experience that might be more than you as well so end of the day bene
f sorry about that I think I got stuck okay can you all hear me yes no yes okay I'm sorry does anyone remember where I my thought so you were saying Elina that like you're competing it's it's really competitive Bachelor students and master students compete for the PHD program yeah yeah yeah sorry that's exactly it whether I'm a good candidate I am so sorry y'all my internet is being horrible so MRE no problem uh any other questions I don't see anyone with their hand up so we can wind up our sess
ion Alina how are you first of all thank [Music] student right now de thank you uh for giving me this motiv motiv motivation first of all in thank you so much that's great and also like I will say if any of you ever need help with application full to just through Pakistan development movement through man reach out through other people and I'm happy to give you feedback or guidance or whatever like we're here to help because a lot of us would like you also to go on the full bright thank you lenin
a I think or quick question so we'll wind up our session thank you very much for being a part of our session today so thank you for absolutely thank you so thank you thank you so much okay bye guys bye
Comments
She is soo sweet 🦋