I’ve always dreamed of living in the US. After working for two years following my graduation from college, I thought it was time to pursue my goal. There were two things that had always fascinated me: First, American life. My parent had lived in America when they were in their 20’s. They used to talk about that life experience and it influenced our life styles. For example, they showed me Disney movies in English, we usually ate western food and used knives and forks, and they bought me Barbie dolls instead of Japanese dolls.
The second reason was English. When my father watched American movies, he didn’t turn on the subtitles or change the audio track. Even though I asked him to change the audio track, he never did. It might have influenced me and I never changed the audio track either. Moreover, I had conversations in English from the fifth to ninth grade. My life was very close to American culture and language.
To move on the next level, I spent a lot of time looking into what I needed to go to the US. I found out that I had to change a career. Because the wages I made as a salesperson weren’t enough to live and save money for my dream. Otherwise it would have taken a few years, It was tough. So I started working on changing careers. After a few weeks, It turned out that it was more difficult change careers. Fortunately, the restaurant, where my friend worked, was looking for new staff which is how I got my job. After a few months, I got another job offer. However I didn’t want to leave the restaurant so I continued working there on my day-off.
The next step was getting a visa. My friend suggested that I apply for a visa through the company but it cost a lot of money, and I wanted to save as much money as I could. I researched how to apply for an F-1 visa, and it looked easy enough to do by myself. The only thing I was really concerned about was the interview at the embassy. One source said it took 30 minutes but another said it was just five minutes. The more research I did, the more worried I got.
Surprisingly, the interview was much easier than I thought and took just ten minutes. The questions I was asked were, for example, “Why do you want to go to the US?”, “What do you want to study?” and “What will you do after studying English?”. I passed the interview and I finally got ready to go to the US.