The Good, The Bad and the Not So Pretty.... Part 1

After deciding on participating in the program, I then had to deal with what I would have considered to be my biggest obstacle of the Program.

The problem was that unfortunately the School had not taken into consideration the fact that the School has a substantial immigrant population. This meant that not everyone was an American citizen and for those of us who were not, a visa requirement would have to be met. However, because this aspect was either not considered or just simply overlooked, the School had no idea first of all that non-citizens would have to acquire a visa and subsequently no information was readily available as to the steps needed to cure this defect.

However, I overlooked this and considered the fact that we were all at least 20 somethings, that should be able to take charge and make any arrangements obtain a visa if need be. After Googling, and browsing through the French Consulates website, the requirements to be met included a letter from the school to be visited, a letter from my home school, proof of income, health insurance, $94 application fee, and then the trip to the Miami consulatejavascript:void(0), $3.50 a gallon gas price not included.

The School however did readily satisfy the requirements of providing a letter and procuring one from University D'Auvergne in France.

The only glitch was that while at while at the Consulate, my application was refused because the letter obtained from the French University was printed on plain 8x11, no letterhead, leading one to form the impression that this was not official and anyone could have written.

However, after some first rate begging and pleading and charm and exception was made, saving me from the walk of shame.

This was still all taken with a grain of salt because as one could expect with any inaugural program, glitches are to be expected. So although it was not so pretty, with the help of a little mascara, it could come outside.