Study Abroad Blog

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I don’t feel like I followed the most traditional path when I applied to ESADE. Nonetheless, a co-worker of mine who received his MBA from Duke gave me some excellent advice during the application process which I found immensely helpful. He said to me that he had received the same advice from former MBA grads when he went through the process, so to continue the chain of advice he encouraged me to help others out in the future should the opportunity present itself. Well, for what it’s worth, the following is an explanation of essentially the advice I received and hopefully whoever reads this will find it useful should you find yourself applying to B-School someday (and I’d like to think some of this advice carries weight for other Master’s programs as well).

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It would be unfair of me to say that I fully grasp the immense emotional and mental strain the naturalization process puts on people, but I am pretty darn close. I feel the need to discuss this issue because to be quite honest, dealing with the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Services) has been far and away the most important aspect of my wife’s preparation to go abroad with me. I admit, this may not hold universal applicability to typical international students reading this, nonetheless, I still feel the need to speak up about our experiences.

I luckily do not need to completely re-tell our whole story, as I can simply pull excerpts from a letter I recently wrote to my local congressman’s office (George Radanovich) to help illustrate just what we have gone through over the last seven months or so. Bear in mind that while I may be new to this, Blanca has been dealing with the INS for over 13 years now. Most of the letter’s contents are as follows:

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My first draft of this 4th chapter of my bio was twice as long as it is now. After much contemplation, I decided to hack out over half of it, as I felt the detail was just too much. Hopefully I did the right thing, now please enjoy!

Chapter 4: Closure, and a New Beginning!

Re-Entry
Upon my return to the US I underwent a slight re-adjustment period. I felt like I had so much to tell everyone I hadn’t seen in eight months, yet, I was often disappointed because I continuously found myself ending stories with the much dreaded, “I guess you had to be there.” I was offered a warm welcome home, don’t get me wrong, it was just that I found difficulty relating to my friends and family right away. Eventually school found it’s way back into session and I began to get back into the swing of things, but even then I knew I was a changed person.

Senior Year and Graduation
Two notable incidents occurred during my senior year and include my being elected President of the Craig Scholars and, most importantly, meeting the woman who would later become my wife, Blanca. Graduation came in May of 2004 and I graduated Summa Cum Laude with a 3.97 GPA (got one stinkin’ B…but I’m not bitter) and was awarded the Outstanding Graduate in the Department of Finance. I thought I had a job lined up after graduation, but when that fell through I scrambled to find something new and stumbled into a Loan Analyst position at a local Farm Credit office.

My First and Second Full-Time Jobs
Let me just say I knew next to nothing about agricultural lending, and after a few months of rotating around the various departments within the office, I settled into my position and got into a groove similar to that which I felt around the time I started investigating studying abroad opportunities in school. My job wasn’t complex, I didn’t feel like I was being challenged or given much responsibility, and after some contemplation I began considering making a change.

I used my contacts I had made during school to get some names at local commercial lending offices where I might be able to find a new position. I wanted to get in with a bigger bank with more resources where I would hopefully find better training opportunities while being exposed to different types of credits. I managed to land an interview at Citibank, and after being offered a position I left Farm Credit after ten months. I have been at Citi now for just over two years and will have just over three years of full time work experience as I start my MBA.

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