Hey again everyone! It’s been a bit busy preparing for YFU and NSLI-Y interviews but I am finally done. Similar to YFU, the National Security Language Initiative for Youth or NSLI-Y is a language school scholarship program to go abroad.
“The U.S. Department of State, in cooperation with American Councils for International Education, awards and administers merit-based scholarships to high school students for participation in summer and academic year immersion programs in locations where the eight NSLI-Y languages are spoken: Arabic, Mandarin, Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Persian (Tajiki), Russian, and Turkish.” My interest is in studying Mandarin in China.
The interview was conducted at a library a few cities over from me. I live in an area that is probably fairly popular for applicants (Silicon Valley). I do know that applicants who live in an area that doesn’t have local AFS volunteers might have to travel several hours away or even do their interview over a skype/video call.
Once arriving at the library, my family and I were directed up to a small room where there were some AFS volunteers who checked me in. They talked a lot about their personal experience abroad and helped to get me comfortable. I was also able to get some nice SWAG from them; a book, some pens, and a pop-socket. There were a few other applicants in the room with me but everyone seemed kinda stiff even though I tried to talk to them. As I expected, everyone was dressed very business-like, nice suits, blazers, slacks, a few girls wore heels. Personally, I wore a white turtleneck, a gray blazer, black slacks, and some ballet flats.
The interviewers and interviewees were paired up at random so I paired s with a kind, older woman as soon as her last interviewee finished. We moved to a larger community room where we just sat across from each other at a table and began the interview. She didn’t know any of my personal details or read my application so we started at the basics of my name, my age, where I was from, confirming my address, etc. After about 5-minutes of filling out the “paperwork” portion of the interview, we moved on to actual questions.
Before the interview, I had prepared a lot in advance, practicing things such as memorable stories, clearly relating back to how this would help me in NSLI, etc. However, as soon as we began, she quickly asked me to slow down. She started handwriting notes, nearly verbatim as to what I was saying. This slowed down the interview considerably and subsequently led me to have to leave out many details in order to get through the question. This was really unexpected for me and it was difficult to adjust. She seemed to rush me a bit when I would pause to think. She asked me a question I hadn’t practiced before and I paused for maybe about 2 seconds and then she quickly scrambled to the next page and told me we should just move on.
She took a special interest in the school I was attending. She was currently hosting an international student who was attending a sister charter school with the same alternative approach to education as mine. Her student hated the school and so she spent a good 4-5 questions of the interview just asking me questions about what I liked about my school and how I would explain the concept to somebody else. It felt like she spent ages on those questions, but it was probably because I was unprepared for them.
Questions she asked me:
- Have you ever had a problem with authority? How did you solve it?
- What kind of host family would be ideal for you?
- What does your weekly schedule look like?
- Tell me about a time when you and your friends had disagreements/differences about your beliefs?
- What do you like about your school?
- How would you explain your school to someone unfamiliar with its system
- What is the advantage of attending your type of school?
- Why did you choose to go to your school?
My last interview with YFU had felt very comfortable, warm, and inviting. This one pretty much just stressed me out. Between the interviewer asking me personal questions that yielded unneeded responses (in my opinion), her constant rushing of me when I would pause, and the really slow pace of the interview just made me feel very uncomfortable. I am however glad that I had this experience as it is just another insight into what I could face in an interview. I really do hope I get into NSLI-Y for China but I am not even sure that if accepted I would go due to the current situation with the novel Corona virus.