Can a poster change your life?

A picture from Gateway Conference

I have a first experience in this topic. I was in my Junior (3rd year) of my undergrad and one day I came across a flyer that caught corner of my eye. It had a white background and a very neat bright blue word on it "Fulbright". I quickly went through the requirements and all I needed was a 3.0 GPA. I wrote down the name of the scholarship and googled it all night wondering what is it actually. Summary of my research was they were funding your studies in the United States for 2 years (depending on the country you are applying from) with no pay back. This sounded tricky because why would anyone really do that? I went into few of my professors the next day and asked if they had known anything about this scholarship. I probably didn't end up with a real answer since I don't really remember anything.

It took me a full day to complete the online forms (they pretty much interview everything about you) and around 3 weeks to collect letter of recommendations. I posted (yes, hard copy mail) the application a week in advance of the deadline to be on the safe side on March 18, 2013.

Since I sent my application no word was heard. I kept on checking their social media accounts to see if I would miss anything. 3 months later, I see an e-mail stating I am invited for the interview. The date, time and location is set and you have no other chance but be there and guess what it was scheduled for my finals week but luckily I had no exam on that day.

The interview was quite fine. Some personal and some technical questions, they just want to see the light in your eyes (and yes every single thing you did in school counts). Thinking now I believe there was 2 thing that differed me from others.

1. I was funded by a national research council as an undergraduate researcher.
2. I wanted to work on steel structures and my reason why there is lack of research in Turkey on that field.

I heard the final work approximately after a month when I was doing my internship on steel structures.

It was not an easy process getting selected or getting into a school, however, I can say with confidence now it was the best and most challanging experience I had since now. Let me know if there is anything I can guide you with for the Fulbright Scholarship.