Intro

Well, I finally decided between sending countless e-mails to my friends and colleagues about this upcoming year and wrapping the whole thing up in a blog. My apologies to those who would rather read these threads in Hungarian but I would also want my non-Hungarian speaking friends to be able to follow these events.

So, I guess I might as well get started. For those of you who have not been informed about this in one way or another: I was lucky enough to win a scholarship to the United States so that I can earn a Master of Laws (LL.M.) title in US law. I will depart on July 11, 2008 first to New York for a few days (the flight will be awfully long: 9.5 hrs) then move on to Davis in California (between Sacramento and San Francisco) for a month-long preparatory course. Finally, around August 9 I plan to reach my original destination: Houston in Texas where I will be enrolled in the Foreign Scholars LL.M. program.

So much for the background, and now some (hopefully) more interesting details.

Submitting an application for a Fulbright grant (which I was lucky enough to win) generally seems to scare people away from applying. Although putting together the huge pile of papers does require some fancy footwork, it is not the defining character of the whole process. The most fun part is when you write the two essays: one about your research study objectives, which is rather a one-page reasoning why you really should get the funding, and another essay what is called "personal statement". The latter is more of a description of your achievements so far beginning with a personal background describing your motivations, dreams and then how far you were successful in realizing those dreams. It really helps to bear in mind the concept of the "American Dream", because that is probably what the decision making committee looks for in the course of the selection process. So if one is a hopeless romantic and has big dreams the strict limit of one page represents the biggest obstacle.

And then (for most applicants) comes the interview before a selection panel. Obviously it is in English and can sometimes be frustrating. When I had my interview I was sitting in front of the room where the panel was in session and asked everyone who came out about their experiences. A girl, who wanted to go the Harvard Law School to study international refuge law (or something like that), was asked how she wanted to pay for the remaining balance of the tuition (the grant would only cover tuition up to $15,000, while Harvard tuition is closer to $35,000 for an academic year). They asked her nothing else and apparently she couldn't come up with a creative solution on the spot and despite her charming British accent she didn't succeed. When I went in the panel looked at my application and saw that I wanted to concentrate on energy law. Their first question was if there is such a thing as energy law. That really came as a surprise to me but I pointed to the lighting above us and said that if it weren't for energy law, those lights would not work at all. Now they were surprised (probably because I was harsh enough to get their attention). By the end of my 40 minute interview (most people didn't spend more than 20 minutes inside) they asked me where they should erect their own wind-powered generators so they seemed to appreciate the possibilities in the industry. It also helped that I remembered some things from my high school physics lessons about generating electricity.

When I was notified that I won a combined grant of Fulbright and the University of Houston Foundation Sándor Turányi Fund, then started the sometimes tiresome but otherwise fun part: organizing the trip itself. When I finally chose an airline to take me to Houston and planned to purchase my ticket, Kriszta Dietz from the Hungarian Fulbright Comission sent me an e-mail asking if I wanted to go to a preacademic training in Davis, CA right before my curriculum in Houston would begin. When I read the part saying that all expenses are covered and I would not have to secure additional funding it took me about two hours to give it the go ahead. :) And in these two hours I already solved a slight scheduling conflict between my Davis program and Houston. Then I realized how good it was not to buy my ticket to Houston just yet.

Actually, I thought buying an airline ticket is easy. Here's the news: it not. I searched through a number of databases to find the cheapest carrier to my destination, Kayak quickly became my favorite search engine to that end. I selected a European airline and went to their website to book my flight. First I didn't realize that I need to lift some purchase limits on my credit card. When I solved that problem, the second one came. I thought the flight problem was solved by buying a one-way ticket from Budapest to San Francisco. But then an official from the airline called to confirm my booking. She asked if I was a US citizen (which I'm not) and suggested that I booked a round-trip ticket instead since I might face some additional "questions" from the immigration officers at the US border. We then agreed not to confirm my booking and again I thought the problem was solved and I should restart the booking process and opt for a round-trip ticket. However, my credit card was charged with the price of the one-way ticket even though I canceled it. It took two weeks (!) to sort this out with the airline and finally get a refund. Not surprisingly I then decided to do this the old fashion way and went to an office of the Hungarian Airline, booked a round-trip ticket to New York.

The next big problem was finding appropriate housing both in Davis and in Houston. Having found out that my stipend for Davis would probably not cover on-campus housing I decided to go through some local ads (i.e. their online versions) to find a sublease for the month I would be there. I have sent around 25 e-mails and got only 1 (!) reply. The guy, who sent the only reply, told me that he'd rather let his room for the whole summer so both of us should keep looking and get in touch if none of us found a better solution. Well, I returned to him about a month later asking if he found a tenant for the summer. Unfortunately he did but still was nice about telling me to keep on going:

"Unfortunately I have leased out my room for this summer so I am unable to help you, and wish you the best of luck in your quest for housing. May the force be with you! Always!"

I'd say the force is always with me. It's called gravity. :)

Then I somehow came across an organization that hosts a homestay program in California. The point is that people stay with volunteering America families so that they can get a closer look at how Americans live. I would have opted for this solution but their official said they could probably not find a family in close proximity to campus.

Fortunately, I managed to arrange for some extra funding and decided to go with the official on-campus housing so that the whole one-month stay could be as smooth as possible. I'm fairly certain that I'll still face a lot of other smaller problems, so why make more of them if can anticipate them.

As for Houston, I was lucky enough to get on-campus housing there as well, the lease agreement is signed and an informal e-mail message from the housing department confirmed its receipt. If they try to escape from it, I'll just point to the huge letters saying "this is a binding contract" and tell them it works both ways. It binds them too. The place where I'll probably have my room is called Cougar Place, I sure hope it really looks as nice as on the pictures.

Oh, and just that you all get really envy, this is also included in the tuition:


And if you haven't seen it yet: