it’s been a while…

21Oct08

and i’m really sorry about that. when you’re counting down the weeks they freakin’ fly. I’m actually down to a little under ten weeks until I leave. where to begin. 

so. after much deliberation I decided to go to school. I’ve detailed the reasons in an earlier post. Every path to expat status is unique, so I won’t pretend to guess at what’s best for your specific relationship. I just realized that I wasn’t ready to be married, but I was ready to be with my love. I also wasn’t ready to move without a purpose. I couldn’t bear the thought of just floating around living off someone when I had my whole life setup in San Francisco. 

So school it is. First step: application.

I looked at the English masters available, but thought I’d have little chance of getting in. The majority of the programs available in English are subsequent masters (a masters after a maters) in fields I had never studied. But for students like me, UGent has a program called the preparatory year of Dutch (btw this language course is only available if you’re getting a degree in Dutch. Language course by themselves will not qualify you for a student visa). This course is designed to intensively teach you Dutch in nine months. 

Here’s the first mistake I made. Don’t do what I did.

I was under the mistaken impression that I could file my application for the Preparatory Year of Dutch and my application for the University of Ghent at approximately the same time in October. I don’t know why I thought this. I was a dummy, simply put. When my BF went down to the school on my behalf, because we were a bit confused, the school informed him that my application needed to be in their processing queue before the faculty left for their summer holiday break. The break was starting on a Friday in June. I found out about this on Tuesday. I had one night and a small portion of the next day to write my application and have it FedEx’d to Ghent.  

The reason I had to do this was I needed an attestation form (it’s a form that says basically, “yeah she’s applied to study in our school). The form lets you apply for the prep year; even if your application has not been approved yet. This was so crucial for me. It took four months for my application to be approved, and by the time I got my official acceptance the deadline for the prep year applications had passed.

If my BF had not gone down there that day, I would be stuck in the US, twiddling my thumbs and cursing my bad judgement.

So I spent all Tuesday day and night stressing about the application. It was the first I’d written in nearly ten years. I’ve been out of the essay writing routine for so long I was questioning every sentence. Finally I got a wonderful piece of advice from  co-worker. She told me to write the essay out completely, save it, then write it again, save it, then write it again. She told me to do this seven times. I stopped after four because I was a bit lazy. When I looked at the changes from essay to essay, I could see dramatic improvements. My thoughts were hazy and unfocused in the beginning, but knowing I would have a version (or several) to build upon I stopped trying to make everything perfect and started writing from the heart.

The nice lady at UGent told me that official copies of my transcripts and apostatized diploma were not necessary to get this attestation form. She would allow me to send in  the unofficial copies for the sake of timing.

Ultimately here’s what I needed for my complete application:

- a completed application form that can be obtained by writing UGent. Details are here

- an essay detailing my motivation for studying at UGent (I wanted to just write BECAUSE I’M IN LOVE but I don’t think that would have gone over so well. )

- a copy of my diploma with an apostille (a seal obtained from your Secretary of State’s office proving that the doc is legit)

- a copy of your official transcripts

What a dame! i still can’t believe that nice lady let me send in unofficial copies. Maybe she could sense our panic? Maybe she was just having a good day.

Either way, just don’t do what I did. If you’re planning on attending Dutch school then regular school and you’re thinking, “well I’m not technically applying for this school year, but next”, just act as though you’re applying for the same school year you’re currently in and let this year’s deadlines apply to you.

I.E. If you are in 2008, you want to get your master in the 2009 school year, so you can go to Dutch school starting January 2009, get your application, transcripts, etc. into to the school (by March 1st, in this case)

You don’t have much wiggle room. 

In my next post, I’ll go over how I got the apostille and transcripts. In a nutshell, it’s not as hard as you’d think.

Filed under: belgium, moving, school, tips for moving   |  1 Comment
Tags: apostille, belgian student visa, essay, expat, expatriate, Ghent University, going back to school, masters, preparatory year of dutch, student visa, UGent, Universitet Gent