IPSE!

After receiving my acceptance email for semi-finalist the first thing I did (after jumping up and down, of course) was to start looking up information about the IPSE. I found a lot, but I still promised myself that I'd write a blog post about my experience if I was accepted. So, here I am about three months later finally making good on that promise! This is mostly targeted towards next years semi finalists, but I hope that others will find this interesting too!

First of all, I had an amazing weekend. All the bloggers say that, but I was still worried about whether it would be true for me! In the end though, despite being sick, jet lagged and extremely nervous I managed to have a wonderful time and meet a lot of great people. Even the flights to and from the event were great experiences, thanks to my flight buddies of awesomeness. (Shout out to Amelia, Carly, Katie and Camille!)

Okay, I'll stop touting the overall wonderfulness of the event and get down to the scarier topics! First of all, The Interview.

The Interview: Every semi finalist has an individual interview. I think that was the most stressful part of the weekend for me, but it turned out to be much less frightening than I had expected.  I was interviewed by two adults affiliated with YES abroad, both of whom were very friendly and understanding. They made me feel comfortable right away.

I think the most important thing to remember for the interview is to be yourself. After all, if you act like someone you aren't you might be accepted, but you also might not really be a good fit for the program and could end up being unhappy while abroad. I would definitely recommend practicing a few potential interview questions, but other than that just take a few deep breathes and answer naturally. At least, that seemed to work for me!

The Group Evaluations: I really enjoyed my group evaluation! First, you are split up into groups with a few other semi finalists. I had a really great group and we seemed to work well together, so I suppose I was lucky on that. Anyway, the group evaluation itself mainly consists of playing various games! We laughed a lot and had a really good time, plus we were probably the whackiest group ever to attend an IPSE. However, that seemed perfectly acceptable.

Free Time: There is a lot of free time at the IPSE. I recommend bringing a few card games that can be played with a large group, and maybe a book or an iPod. The 4H center where my IPSE was held was very big and interesting, so exploring is also a fun activity. Mainly though, free time is spent meeting other semi finalists and having conversations ranging from very silly to very philosophic. It was really fun to meet so many people that I just clicked with right away.

As a side note, don't treat the other semi finalists as competitors. Sure, you all want the same thing, but everyone is really friendly and interesting and the best plan is to make friends with everyone, then even if you don't get the scholarship you will have had an amazing experience.

Finally, don't let the awesomeness of the other semi finalists make you nervous. You will meet a lot of eloquent, intelligent, well rounded people and that can be a little scary. What you need to remember is that you wouldn't be there if you weren't an amazing person too! Believe me, after meeting just a few of the other semi finalists I got really worried about whether I was up to par. But, by some amazing happenstance I did get the scholarship and I am going to Oman!

Shukran wa ma'asalama!