I would first like to begin this post by stating that none of this would have been possible without the Gilman Scholarship. Although I still received a few other scholarships, in total they all added up to fraction of the Gilman and I think that in itself shows the significance that this scholarship had on my study abroad experience. Relying only on financial aid to fund my college education, I knew that studying abroad would be very expensive and not within my budget, which was probably the main reason that I never saw studying abroad as realistic for me. When I had finally decided to pursue studying abroad, I knew that just like my college education, I would need to rely on financial aid to get me through it. This is where I began to research scholarships and attend information sessions on scholarships at SDSU. The most prominent scholarship that I kept hearing over and over about on how beneficial it is for low-income students, was the Gilman Scholarship. After reviewing the application process and speaking to advisers on campus, I believed I would be a competitive applicant and be able to relieve a huge portion of the financial burden from studying abroad.
Applying for the Gilman was not easy, as it took a lot of time and effort to make sure that I was presenting myself the best that I could. I knew that I had met the basic eligibility requirements but then I took the time to learn more about writing a successful essay, proposal, and so on. I did this through attending various scholarship meetings at SDSU, including one that had an emphasis on the Gilman alone. These information sessions proved to be a great help and I recommend that anyone seeking to study abroad at least check the requirements and try to apply for the Gilman Scholarship as the financial help really does go a long way and allow you to have more freedom while studying abroad. I was also awarded a couple of scholarships from SDSU. The first was the provided by the Associated Students at SDSU and required a simple essay no more than a page long describing your goals. The other one was through the Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement (MESA) program at SDSU in which I had to write an essay of similar style that included my goals and so on. Additionally, while I was in Japan, I was awarded with some form of the JASSO scholarship as they had more funds than anticipated toward the end of the year. I had applied to this scholarship in my application to study abroad at YNU and it only required completing some paperwork. I would like to reiterate that although these other scholarships did help throughout my study abroad experience, the Gilman Scholarship had by far the most impact in that I would not have been able to study abroad on the first place if I had not been awarded it. So again, if you ever want to study abroad, plan ahead by looking at the Gilman scholarship, attend any scholarship information sessions your campus may offer, talk to a financial aid adviser, talk to a study abroad adviser, and always try to apply for the Gilman scholarship. For anyone interested in the Gilman Scholarship, please follow the link below! https://www.iie.org/gilman/ For any SDSU students reading this, please check out the scholarship search tool with the link below and see if what is out there for you! http://go.sdsu.edu/student_affairs/financialaid/sdsuscholarshipshowtosearch.aspx Comments are closed.
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AuthorI am Kyle Sablan and I studied abroad at Yokohama National University (YNU) during the 2016-2017 academic year. This blog was created as one of the requirements for receiving the Gilman Scholarship. The purpose of this blog is to share my personal experience with everybody and encourage interest in studying abroad. Archives
April 2018
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