Before The Fulbright Application Process

Imposter Syndrome, Researching Fellowship Options, Preparation..

Hey all!

If you are on this page, I am guessing you are either interested in international travel, higher education, Spanish food and drink, or maybe you are even considering applying for a Fulbright grant or a similar fellowship program. This page will act as a stream of consciousness that will cover all of these things! I hope that it is educational, informative, and even fun.

Let’s start from the beginning of this whole journey… The Fulbright English Teaching Assistant application….

Click this link here to familiarize yourself with the Fulbright ETA program if you are not already familiar! It is actually quite prestigious and I feel blessed to be a part of the experience.

Before even starting the Fulbright application, I spent hours studying the logistics of the application, I watched powerpoints galore on the application timeline, and I researched what the visa process would look like for an education-related Visa to Spain. I quickly learned that this would be a lengthy and expensive process, so rather than jumping into the application right away, I took the last few weeks of college to DEEPLY think about what I wanted.

I started the Fulbright ETA application when I was finishing up my undergraduate studies at Grand Valley State University. To flashback to that time… while at GVSU, I studied Political Science and International Business. In terms of extracurriculars, I was heavily involved on and off campus. I was part of the Honors College, where I mentored and TA’d… I was the President of the Student Senate…I was the President of Model European Union… I attended national security seminars in Washington D.C…I was in the Cook Leadership Academy… I was waitressing in fine dining part-time… and honestly, probably more crazy and time-consuming activities that I do not even remember. As you can probably already tell, I didn’t have a great deal of free time in undergrad which meant that I put my time into the things I valued most!

Anyways, in April of 2023, at the tail end of my senior year, I went to the GVSU Fellowships Office and had a meeting with Dr. Brenda Tooley. Like I said earlier, throughout undergrad, I had researched different fellowships and opportunities to travel abroad but honestly, I consistently felt that I was not Fulbright material.. that I was not smart enough, that my resume wasn’t advanced or diverse enough, and imposter syndrome was controlling me. Fulbright was never my original plan, I had hoped to study abroad to scratch my itch for an international experience, but COVID shutdowns during my college experience prevented these opportunities. However, as I continued to research, I quickly realized that the Fulbright ETA program was what I was looking for. I should also probably preface that I had always planned to take a gap year between undergraduate and whatever adventure followed because that time to just work and apply for programs abroad was essential for me. This break was needed because I started college classes when I was 15 and continued part-time and/or full-time through the age of 22 to complete my Associate’s and Bachelor’s degrees.

Anyways I decided to apply, and ultimately I got in!!! I have officially been in Madrid for a week now and will be posting to this page every 10-14 days about all kinds of different things. For my next post, I plan on talking about the Fulbright ETA application. Then, I plan to touch on things like the Visa process, how to save and plan for extensive travel or major moves, good eats in Madrid, and life in the classroom as a TA! If there are things people want to know, please contact me via email at faithlkidd@gmail.com to ask questions and I can answer them in my posts.

My goal with this substack is to be entertaining, informative, but also keep things informal enough that this can be a hobby and time I treasure! Ok, now don’t be a silly goose, subscribe below!!

Salud!

Faith :)