This is EducationUSA Iran
Adviser: Hello and welcome to our podcast. In this podcast today we are interviewing an Iranian student; Azadeh is studying in the United States for the last three years. She is sharing her story with us.
Jessica (VOA Student Union):So you are here in the U.S. studying for your PhD in mechanical engineering and you have been here you said three years?
Azadeh: Right, I have been here for three years. I got my bachelor and master’s in my country and worked there for about 3 ½ or 4 years and then I applied for PhD program here. I got the admission and came three years ago. I was supposed to be here four years ago but I missed it because of the visa process, everything, it is a long story.
Jessica: Let’s come back, I’d definitely want to hear about that but so we just get the basics out of the way, what was it that inspired you to come to the United States when you had already done most of your education back home. What made you want to come here?
Azadeh: Actually, I graduated from a very famous university in Iran, Sharif University of Technology. There are lots of people there that are dreaming about coming overseas to continue their education and I can say that almost 90% of my friends now are overseas. The friends from my undergraduate school so there is a very big motivation in people in good universities in Iran to apply for their graduate school in different countries. They think that it would be a good experience for them to see other countries, to see their life style, and definitely to go to a good university. If they come back to their countries, they can get the best jobs, hopefully.
I was thinking about it a long long time but I was lazier to apply right on time, after I graduated from Bachelors, and then I went to work I decided to continue my education. I was not sure, but then you work and you are familiar with how that goes. Then you feel, “I need something more than this! So let’s go for the next step.”
Jessica: Yeah. So then you go back to work, and a couple of years later you pick a new field and come back to school. You can just stay in school for ever and ever! I have friends who have done that. They went to law school and then they work and decided, oh I actually they wanted to go to school.
Adviser: From the time you decided to apply, how long did it take to research programs, and find the university, and actually get to the US?
Azadeh: When I started searching around for universities, I was at a total lost. I didn’t know how to go to the best sites and how can I find the best universities, and then I found that each university has a different webpage design. It was hard to get familiar – how can I find their application forms and everything?
Then some friends helped me to figure out how to do that. I started doing that when I was working on my Master’s thesis, and I was very relaxed because there was no rush during a year or so. Making an excel file, listing all the universities I’m interested in, departments, all of the professors and everything. But the truth is that I didn’t use it that much. Because when I started my work, I was so busy with work. And when I made up my mind about applying to universities that are located in specific areas, that I had some friends or family or someone close by, you know? It’s not good criteria actually. But for me it worked very well.
Jessica: Do you have any suggestions for other people who are starting to research? How should they overcome that thing of, sort of, being overloaded with information?
Azadeh: Yeah, sure! First of all, finding a good university, the university that is the best for you, is very similar to trying to find a house to buy. If you don’t know where exactly you want to go, you have plenty of areas to search around, and you’ll be lost. So first of all, you need to choose between different states. Which states are you going to go? Or if you are going to go to the top universities, try for the top ten or top twenty. It depends on what exactly you want to do. But I don’t recommend people to go through all the universities around the state without caring where it is located because they will be lost. It will be lots of trouble to decide which one is better. But when they go to the website of the university, they can easily find the links to future students, or application, admission, graduate school, graduate school, and something like that. They can easily go there and figure out what they need.
I am in reliability engineering program, which there are few universities in the world that offer this program.
Adviser: How do you a specific program? That you are interested?
Azadeh: Actually, I met a friend of mine and he was studying this major accidently. He came to Iran and I was talking to him about his major, and found that it is very similar to what I am doing in my Master’s thesis. Then I decided to apply for it. It was my first choice. I said, ok, it is a good university, located in a good area, I have some friends there, it is a good program, very related to me and my interests. I was so lucky, because I just applied to one and I got it!
Adviser: Students are so specific in what they want to study, from Iran. They know exactly what subfield and what engineering field – they are very specific.
Jessica: So you work with students, but most EduationUSA regional offices have an office in the country. So you say, go visit EduationUSA. And they have conferences, and speakers. I mean, is it all over email with you guys? How do you do it?
Adviser: Yes, for now it is with emails, because we had a number of inquiries that I could manage to respond to and give them that one-on-one personal attention and the information they need. But as the number of inquiries went up, all of the other EduationUSA advising centers hold workshops. They never have a one-on-one advising session with the student. And they tell the student to come back, sit in on a workshop, learn the overall admission process and everything that they need to know about researching programs. And then if they have more specific questions they get to meet with the adviser. So that’s what the plan is – in the near future, in two weeks or three weeks, we will have online EducationUSA Connects sessions on a weekly basis for students to login and ask their questions after seeing the webinar. I’m hoping that people will find out and will attend these sessions and get their answer that way.
From EducationUSA Iran studio.
This was a production of EducationUSAIran.com
