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Fulbright Program: U.S. Applicant Podcast

Transcript For: Fulbright Alumni Roundtable - Asia Q&A Part 2

Fulbright Alumni Roundtable Q&A Part 2 - Asia. Jonathan Akeley and Fulbright Alumni field questions from potential applicants to the U.S. Student Fulbright Program.

Student 1:         I had a question, hi, my name is (inaudible), I printed out some forms, like

some supplemental forms, and the one I wanted to ask a question about was the language background report.  I’m interested in going to Cambodia and I speak Cambodian, but I don’t write it, and it says that you should probably have a proficiency in it, and there’s 8A, which is the addendum, and it says that you would have to be evaluated by a language evaluator.  Would that really depend on what your research project is, that’s what I want to apply to, the Fulbright research, would it really depend on what your topic is, as far as the level of proficiency that’s needed?

Jonathan:          Well, regardless of what the topic is, it’s to your advantage to have a language evaluation completed if you actually do have skills in that language because it makes you more competitive for the country that you’re applying to.  So, even if you don’t have reading and writing capabilities, the fact that you have verbal conversational skills is important and it would be important to your work, so it behooves you to get the language evaluation. 

Student 2:         Who does the language evaluation?  Do you have to have professors at your college, where you took classes, or who does it?

Jonathan:          In the case of Khmer, if you have a professor at your college that teaches Khmer, that’s great, but chances are you probably don’t, so in a case where it’s a less commonly taught language you can either try to find a Khmer teacher or instructor at another institution who might be willing to do an evaluation for you.  Failing that, you could also try to find a native speaker, preferably college educated, not related to you, that could do the language evaluation for you.

Student 3:         This is a question to all the research Fulbrights.  I’m interested in finding out how you found and established contacts, either individuals or institutions, in your host countries, and how your relationships with your host research person worked out. 

Chris:               In my case I didn’t really know any researchers or anyone in Australia, but I was interested in the country.  So I just started looking at university websites, such as the University of Sydney, and I just started e-mailing people saying hi, my name’s Chris, I’m interested in working on a biotechnology related project, and I’m interested in applying to the Fulbright Program.  What this would allow me to do is work with you for a year in which you wouldn’t have to pay or support me, and maybe we could work on some project.  I sent some e-mails to a lot of people and eventually got a response, and then over a series of talking, and then we talked on the phone, we worked out a project.  So, I didn’t sit down and say I want to do this project and e-mail one specific person.  I went through a lot of different places.  Some people had professors at their school who knew other people in other countries who sort of formed a bond and they had a project idea already, and in my case it was more of a cold e-mail. 

Jeffrey:             I can speak to that both in terms of my institutional contact and my research contacts.  As I said before, I had problems with my affiliation; my professor, who was my advisor at my university, and I ended up, I didn’t really work with him at all.  So, I made a lot of contacts at other universities, starting primarily through my dissertation advisor here in Washington.  So my institutional affiliation tended, it wasn’t my formal institutional affiliation, it was at other universities.  In terms of individuals outside of your actual affiliation, but more concerning your research, for me it was just a lot of perseverance and a lot of hit or miss.  I sent out a lot of letters and a lot of e-mails, and made a lot of phone calls, both politicians and bureaucrats, waiting to establish, trying to keep contact, and once I did establish contact, then with people who trusted me and they liked my research, then from there it snowballed.  I went with nobody, like I said before, I made ninety six interviews before I left, and out of that I still maintain contact with the politicians and bureaucrats who still help me, still answer questions, give me materials.  But it takes a lot of perseverance, and you’re going to get a lot of doors closed on you.  But you have to just keep trying, and eventually, once you get your foot in the door, then you just keep trying to use that and establish a very good relationship and things usually snowball from there. 

Student 4:         I’d like to just ask a follow-up to this institutional affiliation question.  I’m wondering whether in the application process itself, does the quality of the institutional affiliation play into the selection process at all, or how important is it and what is looked at when you look at the institutional affiliation in the process or selection?

Jonathan:          Well, the affiliation letter, if there is one, is only one component of the application, and just so that nobody panics, it’s not a required piece of the application, because we understand that, particularly in some parts of the world, it’s very difficult trying to get that letter in advance, especially when people have no idea what the Fulbright is and why you’re contacting them and asking them for these things.  But that being said, especially if you guys are starting your applications now, you do have a lot of lead time to start making contacts and hopefully get a letter.  Basically, the affiliation letter helps to bolster the feasibility and credibility of the project you’re proposing when you have someone in the host country that says they’re willing to work with you and they’re speaking to the validity of the project that you’re proposing.  So in and of itself it’s not a deciding factor, but it can be one thing that helps convince the screening committee members of the strength of your proposal. 

Student 5:         I was wondering if anyone could speak a little bit more to the Critical Language Enhancement Grants, particularly I was little bit confused reading it, and it looks like it’s in-country language training, but it’s a pre-grant, so does that mean that you go to the country before your research starts, or how does that work?

Jonathan:          Can I ask which country you’re applying to?

Student 5:         I’ll be applying to India.

Jonathan:          It’s like a pre-grant grant.  Basically, it’s a three to six month period when you solely will be focusing on the language, whether it Hindi or Bengali, or whichever language you want to study.  During that period of time you won’t be working on your Fulbright Grant research.  You’ll just be studying at a language school.  And it’s separate, so you need to design a Fulbright proposal that can stand on its own two feet without having the benefit of the critical language, because there’s no guarantee that you’ll get the Critical Language Enhancement Award, so you don’t want the Fulbright research that you’re doing on your Full grant to be dependent on having that time, if that makes sense.  And then basically, that three to six months is in addition to whatever the time the length of the grant is for that country you’re applying to.  So in the case of India, where it’s a nine month grant, your total time in India would be twelve to fifteen months if you actually got a Critical Language Enhancement Award. 

Student 6:         I have a question about the Performing Arts Grant.  I was just wondering what kinds of affiliations you’re expecting for these kind of grants.  Are you looking at conservatories or private teachers, or kind of anything we can do?

Jonathan:          Again, can I ask what country you’re applying to?

Student 6:         Vietnam.

Jonathan:          Vietnam.  Okay.  With arts applicants, even, depending on the project it might not be a good fit, but I mean most countries, in order to just get a visa, you have to have some type of institutional affiliation.  So, it’s not going to be possible to say, well, I’m going to work with this artist, and that’s going to be my only connection.  You’re going to have to have something more than that.  So in some instances you have to have an affiliation for more formal, official reasons than the actual content of the research that you’re going to be doing.  But that being said, even if you have a formal affiliation with a university in Vietnam, you could still work with local artists for whatever you needed for your project.  Just because your official affiliation is with one institution, it doesn’t preclude you from working with other individuals or organizations. 

Student 7:         What kind of background are you looking for from the students?  Say if I wanted to study traditional music, you have to have some kind of experience in that kind of music or if it was more just a different type of musical training you had beforehand would that be sufficient?

Jonathan:          That would really depend on how you approach the project.  Are you wanting to go over as a performing artist, or are you doing it more from a sociological, musicology type of perspective? 

Student 7:         More of a performing perspective. 

Jonathan:          So which field of study do you think you’d apply in?  Dance?

Student 7:         Music.  Performing music.  String instruments.

Jonathan:          String instruments.  Okay, getting into one of these complicated areas for us.  So, if you’re going to apply, I’m trying to think of how to best answer this, if you’re going to apply in string instruments, most of the string instruments that are evaluated in the Fulbright are Western-European string instruments: violin, cello, things like that.  So if it’s a very traditional Vietnamese instrument that you’re looking to study, would you submit a supplementary material on that instrument or would you submit supplementary material of you playing the violin, the cello, some other Western string instrument?

Student 7:         I’ve sent in material of myself playing that instrument – the traditional instrument. 

Jonathan:          Then you would probably have to apply in the field of ethnomusicology.  Because what happens is most of the people who are listening to the submissions for people who apply, say for strings, they don’t feel qualified to evaluate other instruments that most Westerners are not familiar with.  So that application would most likely be viewed by the ethnomusicology people. 

Student 8:         I’m interested in applying for a Fulbright to study in Taiwan and I noticed on the website there’s a research grant proposal available, and also an internship available, and I was just wondering if you would need a proposal to apply for the internship, and are we allowed to apply for both?

Jonathan:          No. You’re only allowed to apply for one type of Fulbright grant in a particular year.  Also, you need to make sure that if you’re applying for one of the internship grants, the internship projects are only available to people who are in the fields of journalism and international education.  So if you’re not a masters student and you don’t have qualifications in those fields, then the internship option is not available to you.  If you do apply for an internship grant, then yes, you do have to design a proposal just like any of the other Fulbright applicants. 

Student 8:         Interning at the IIE office or do we need a new service?

Jonathan:          No, you would, I don’t think IIE has an office in Dubai yet.  You would intern with, if it were in media it would be some type of news organization.  International education could be a number of different locations, but in your project proposal you would need to identify where you would want to base your project and why you would want to base it there and what you would want to get out of it, and all of that.  But you would have to figure out where the appropriate institution would be for your project. 

Student 9:         I had a question pertaining to China, in particular I speak Chinese, and I noticed on the website that it stated that if you have a background in Chinese you’re at a disadvantage for applying for a Fulbright, so I’m wondering, does the Fulbright Committee want to sponsor people that have the language, or you do have the language so therefore you’d be a better applicant to maybe facilitate your research on a given subject matter?

Jonathan:          Okay, I think you might be mixing up terms on the Fulbright website.  Actually, the language requirement for China is that you have a minimum of two years of Chinese.  The restriction is more on people who’ve had an extensive amount of experience living in China.  Those people do not get preference in the program.  But language is a requirement. 

Student 10:       So I have a little more of a question in terms of how much exposure is too much exposure.  I am working on my masters program right now and I’ll actually be in India this summer and I’m considering applying for India again next year as I finish up my master’s on a project that’s related but kind of expounds on what I’ll be working on.  I don’t know if that then disqualifies me altogether. 

Jonathan:          How much time have you spent in India over the years?

Student 10:       I moved here when I was ten, and I lived there for about a year - ten years ago.  But I haven’t been to India since then. The last time I was in India was 2001.

Jonathan:          Okay.  I would say, all things being equal, the program always give preference to people who have not had the chance to spend time in the country.  That being said, I mean, as long as you haven’t spent a lot of recent time, I mean, if you spent a summer that’s not a big deal, but if you spent more than six months kind of in the last couple of years living, researching, working, in India, that would be a substantial disadvantage.  This might make you partially less competitive, but not to the point where we might say you might need to think of some other country. 

Staff:                Any questions?  Okay, I think that’s it from San Francisco.  Thank you.

Jonathan:          Okay.  We have a follow-up question here in New York.  So we’ll let one more person jump in here. 

Student 11:       Are you at a disadvantage if you did your undergraduate degree abroad?

Jonathan:          If you did your undergraduate degree in the country you’re applying to, most definitely.  You would have a very small chance of getting a grant to that country.  If you did it in a different country, not in the country you’re applying to for your Fulbright, then it’s okay.  So, thank you everyone for coming tonight, and thank you especially to our alumni.  We definitely benefit from your wisdom and we like to bring you here to hear first hand stories.  Clapping.  If anyone has additional questions, my contact information is on the Fulbright website, so, down the line, obviously, the application process is just opening up on May 1^st, so there’s a lot of time until the deadline, but if you have questions down the line, feel free to e-mail or call.  And thank you for coming.