From Second Class to Erasmus Mundus Scholar 🇪🇺

there. Good evening everyone. I am here. It's so important once again. Thank you so much for the opportunity, Grace. Most especially how I speak I don't even see myself as a means speaker. I think people are so willing to hear how it is possible for you to graduate to finish with a there as most members scholarship down even day two. So it is not only an opportunity for me to come and speak and inspire, motivate or show people the way. It is also an opportunity for me myself to also learn especially from issue of my who want your husband or scholarship with two two. So I am going to learn as much as I am going to speak to people also. So it's such a great opportunity. So thank you once again, Grace. I cheesy can you hear me? I Grace, how you doing? Do you want me to say something? Yeah, you can't just like me. I mean you are admit yourself. So just. Hi guys, I'm cheesy, uh, uh, uh, Anera's responders, um, scholar. I graduated this year from the European Master of Science in Skin Health and Care, specializing in biomedical science. So one of the questions I always get from people is kind of to apply because I think if I'm looking at all the, uh, games I've got in 80% is trying to, um, decipher if they are class of degree can actually get their as most members scholarship. That's why we've decided to invite speakers who had two one and two two and also for them to give you first hand information of how it is possible for them to get this scholarship using this, with this class of degrees. And for you to also know that it's possible and it is doable. So this, space promises to be very, very educative and informative. And I hope that you're going to learn one or two things from it. And you will stop reaching out to ask me if it's to can apply. I hope that you'd use the information you get to, um, apply for the scholarship. You never know you can be an Erasmus Mundo scholar too. So yeah, over. Thank you, Trizzi. Yeah, so I also like to add, I myself, I graduated sworn. So, and I think in a while people who got Erasmus also graduated sworn and it first class as well and it's so, so, so easy. It's like shows how she did that. And I think we'll be clear to the about a working and also is that they actually, um, for working, I think it's totally chemistry and it's now in logistics, right? Uh, my knowledge is even very, very dynamic. I studied for science and technology. Yes. Which is totally different from the scholarship I want. The scholarship I want is in analytical chemistry. But the downside of it again, it's not even downside is now I work as a software manager, software, software professional, which is actually different from what I studied in the graduate. And also very different from what I studied for my Erasmus Mundo program. So I did like three things all together that are not related. So these nights, we'll be willing to share how I did everything. Yeah, that's really amazing. And I think for us as well, she got, she's got the Erasmus scholarship in a different field for more history on the graduate. So yeah, I'm also, are you there? Yes, I am. Could you? Yeah, would you be performing for yourself? Anyone is fine. All right. All right. So your main guest for today, so, um, can introduce yourself. She's a current scholar. She just studied this year. She's a 26 hour D. So can you just like give us a brief introduction about yourself and how the application process wins and all of that? Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Good evening. Good evening, everyone. Um, I want to say just thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to be able to share my story here and how I was able to approach the process. So the credit in is for the longest time I never used to apply for scholarships in the EU or in the UK. Right? It's majorly because of my grades. I graduated with a 3.21. I studied Pion Industrial Chemistry in the University of Nigeria in Suka. And after I graduated, I knew that I wanted to further my education. I also knew that I did not want to further my education in chemistry. But then I was able to I knew that the US also has a very holistic admission process, which means that they don't just look at your grades. They look at every other thing that you have you have done related to what you are applying to do for the past. I graduated in 2023 by the way. And, um, I graduated in 2023. And since then I've been applying for scholarships for my postgraduate school. So I didn't use to apply for like a response programs or maybe scholarships in the UK or Massacar because I felt like they were too focused on the numbers. And I knew that my numbers were not so great. So one of the things that I was able to do and there was no like an exam that you could write to prove that you were smart in the numbers. Like for the US, you could write the GRE, you could write GMATs or something. But for the EU is just what you did, you undergraduate, um, CGP and stuff. So I wrote the GRE, but everything happened. The whole Nigerian ban, um, visa ban for Nigerians and all of that. So I wasn't able to do that. So one of the days I was just scrolling on Twitter, actually, I found the scholarship on Twitter. I think I remember I was a bit so a lot that had posted about it and I looked at it on the, just not on the side. This is actually a main thing. I, when I was studying, when I was in my undergraduate, um, during my undergraduate program, I started learning how to design some product design and I started that in 2021 after the lockdown. All right, because I kind of figured that's oh, I was not too interested in, um, chemistry as much. But then I did not want to go and maybe start with our right-jump again and try to go back to maybe a course that I wanted or something. So I just, I started an internship while I was still studying that was in my taught year. That's 2021. I think it was my taught year or something. So since then, I've also been a product designer and my current, my scholarship is in that area. So it means that the time I was graduating in 2023, I really had like two to three years of experience working as a product designer and then I had projects that I had worked on. So when I found the SDSI program and I looked at the teams that the requirements that they had, I figured that it was a program that was really tailored to what I wanted. So as much as I was not willing to apply because of, again, the numbers, I felt like, oh, aside the numbers, I had everything that they needed. So I just give it a shot. This is like just a very over-run down thing of how that would happen. But I feel like as this, as this space proceeds, maybe you would get into the details of that or if this is the time for me to get into the details of that, maybe you would also let me know. Yes, yes, I'll continue. Okay, so the seventh design program, like when I found my program, I found that it was not so, I did not know it was not like, I didn't, when I saw it, I just knew that I had certain things that they wanted. So I think one of the core things for me was that while I was also applying for, because I applied for my program within two, three weeks, it was less than three weeks because I found the program like early February and the deadline was I remember February 25th. So it was around that time I found the program and then it had a lot of requirements. Right, so it took me like two to three weeks, but what stood out like one thing that was that made it really easy for me was that I had really started preparing my application to apply to schools in the US because the ban happened in December, so I had really started preparing all my applications, my recommendations on everything from August of the previous year. So by the time I saw the program in February, I already had most of the things ready because I would have really prepared my application documents, right? So I just needed to work on the assessments and then I think every arasmas program, I know every arasmas program is really unique in their approach because my program required us to do a research assignment, right? So and research assignments was heavily weighted, it was like there's a research assignment and then there's the motivation letter. We didn't have the, did you know required to submit recommendations, which was really helpful for me because two weeks was such a short time to have gotten recommendations, so but they required us to do research assignments and a motivation letter. So for the first phase of the application, the core teams were the motivation video and research assignments and research assignments was you write a research paper, well not exactly research people, but it was a research you do and you write and you'll also make a video just discussing your solution in two minutes, everything was supposed to be like two minutes and stuff and that was like 70% of the grade of the grade and the motivation video was like 30%. So I think every other documents were just submitted for documentation purposes, right? So the idea was if you don't have any of this, if you don't have the required documents, your application would not be reviewed but then once you have all your documents then your grid depends on your research assignments and your motivational video. So I kind of used the two weeks I had to just focus on doing the assignments. It was on the future of health, not even anything related to design at all. It was on the future of health and just how you could design this solution. I think what they just wanted to see was how you could look at the problem and know how to optimize it and be able to express yourself and your backup here because we were actually supposed to build on an existing research. So most of that, I think it was just testing what the program would actually require you to do and stuff and I did that and I actually totally forgot about it. I just wanted to do it and get it out of the way because and I totally forgot about it and two weeks later I got the invites for the interview. So for my initial application to be very honest, I feel like I did not put in a lot of efforts but I think that the efforts was but when I think about it now I actually did put in a lot of efforts just not in that two weeks because I had really started preparing for the application from August or for the application season from August. So that two weeks was just me gathering all the documents I really had right and they're having time to do the assignments that was required and then so but so to me didn't feel like so much efforts but I know that it was during the interview after then there was everyone was listed and we were like 51 candidates so I should at least get out of like 900 and it's something people. So with a short list of the interview, I just picked for my interview to be like a week later because to be very honest I had not researched I didn't I had never reached out to maybe alumni of the program or something so I knew that I needed time to do that so I picked the last day for the interview I picked like a week later and I used that time to reach out to people that were already the headquarters. I think there was already there's only one Nigerian that had come through the program and he had just graduated last year so I reached out to him and he was very responsive so he gave me insights on how to go about the interview and what do we the kind of questions they would most likely be asking and there were some YouTube videos and then I spent the time going through the YouTube page of the program like I think I watched videos from as far back as 2021 that the program had uploaded just giving information about your program then I came up with I used to chat GPC or Gemini and I one of them and I came up with what you call it like test questions right I actually printed them out in the booklet test questions possible questions so I used the information that was given to me by the alumni and fed that to GPC and generated possible questions that could I could have and in that one week I studied those questions I literally read them at some point I said the question like I recorded myself answering the questions and maybe I'm walking on the street and I'll be right in the headphone and you probably think I'm listening to music but I'm listening to myself talking repeating the interview and and stuff so that and then I had the interview went well was just 15-20 minutes interview and then two weeks later I got the offer for the scholarship yeah I think that's all along the story thank you so much I said that was really really insightful I think one important thing I got from your and for what you said is that like don't reject yourself like just try apply you never can tell let the selection board