Adviser: Welcome! This is the continuation of the previous podcast. In the previous podcast, we were talking with Azadeh, an Iranian student studying in the United States for the past three years. Azadeh is sharing her story with us today.
Jessica (VOA Student Union):I am kind of curious from both of you, because I know that the U.S. and Iran doesn’t have the best of relationships obviously but it sounds that there is a lot of interest from students and you said that a lot of your friends have come to study here or overseas and you said that a lot of people have been contacting you. How is that viewed in Iran if you study in the U.S., is it a positive thing or because of the political culture is it not necessarily?
Azadeh: I cannot say that it is negative! I don’t remember someone that would say oh my god, you are going to U.S. is like a bad thing or something, no!
Adviser: I think not only for Iranian students but also for the majority of students around the world, one of the dream destinations to continue your studies is the United States. Because of the flexibility of programs, because the faculty members are always up to date and they are researching with the students. You feel part of a group that is doing some research in that field. Also they publish books, professors are very active so there are some benefits in coming to the United States for studying. I think that Iranians are like anyone else and they want to come to study here. But contacting the United States, paying admission fees online, because of the politics like Azadeh said, there are always problems that you can feel in every step of the way.
Azadeh: Since I am here, it’s not easy for me to get some money from my parents because when they want to send it to me there is a long process, security stuff to get that money, you know? (sanctions) it is not worth it. I had this problem and everybody had it since they have to pay the application fee somehow, they have to send their documentations and it is not easy at all.
Jessica:How did you receive your I-20?
Azadeh: That’s a big issue! I got my I-20 twice; because the first time I missed it because of the visa problem (clearance took three months). Then my visa was cleared and I had to get another I-20 and both times were like a headache. The first time I asked my friend, she used to live here, to grab it for me and post it to Dubai, the place that I was supposed to go for my interview with the U.S. Embassy. She posted it there and I was lucky because I had some other friends there and used their address and got it easily. But it was my luck, if you don’t have anyone you have to just wait to see if you can get it at home or not!
Jessica: Because the mail is unreliable?
Azadeh: Yeah! The mail between my country and the States is unreliable.
Adviser: For some reason any mail that comes from the United States, U.K., and Canada gets lost. Even if you know the postman of your neighborhood and you tell him; I am waiting for a mail from the United States, can you keep an eye out. The mail does not reach the neighborhood even to be able to track!
Azadeh: Sometimes we have this problem, not always.
Jessica:How did you even get your acceptance letter? Was that part online?
Azadeh: Actually the first one was an email and then they sent it to my address. The first one that said that you have been admitted, I got it at my address. The most important one is the I-20. And the second time that I asked for a new I-20, I asked someone who was traveling from here to Iran to bring it for me and I went there and got it. But it was a long process because my friend had to drive three hours to get there and give it to the person that was coming to Iran. It was safer for me because if I didn’t get my I-20, I would have missed next semester.
Jessica: Is that what happened the first time?
Azadeh: My visa took three months to be cleared! I had no idea that it was going to be more than two weeks or so. I quit my job, I moved out my apartment, I sold my car and everything was ready for fly to U.S. and it was not cleared. So I missed a semester for that, and I had to defer it. And it was my second time to defer semester because the first time I didn’t get the funding in the first admission and asked for the funding, I had to wait a semester to get the funding so I deferred it once, then I couldn’t get the visa so I deferred it twice and came one year later than I was supposed to.
Jessica: Can you explain a little bit, because a lot of people are not familiar with what it takes to get a visa when you are in Iran and you can’t just walk over to the Embassy. Can you explain sort of what the procedure was that you had to go there?
Azadeh: As you know now, there is no American Embassy in my country. So we have to go to other countries to apply. For some reason, the number of countries that we can apply for getting a visa is very limited. I am not sure about now but at the time that I was applying it was just Dubai, Cyprus, and Turkey. And nothing else! I couldn’t go to for example Malaysia to get a visa. And there was another problem. For example, if I am going to go to Cyprus, I’ll need a visa for Cyprus as well. And if I want to go to get their visa, they’ll ask me for financial support. There are some other issues with a single lady traveling abroad for some countries. They ask you to have one of your parents with you, they asked me to go with my mother because it would be easier to get that visa to go to Cyprus. I don’t know why! And then I just quit and said ok, I am going to go to Dubai. It is easier for me. Everybody then says that oh no don’t go to Dubai, it is much harder to get a visa (from the U.S. Embassy in Dubai), they don’t give visa, and everybody that went to Cyprus got it but in Dubai is so much harder…! I didn’t care! I said ok, I don’t have time and have to go to Dubai. And I got it! It was pretty easy! I didn’t have any problem. And there are lots of rumors around like if you have financial support from the university you have to prove that you are financially supported from your country and you have enough money in your bank account. You should take your bank statement to the officer. I didn’t know exactly how much money I needed to take and it was kind of risky. Nobody knows what amount exactly it is supposed to be. So I said, mom, dad, please give me any savings that you have, uncle, aunt, every help to fill my bank account… and it was totally unnecessary because I was fully funded and the officer told me: oh no, I don’t need to see those stuff and she didn’t even have a look at my financial statements and said that you are totally funded so its fine!
And the clearance process is the worst one. It takes sometimes a long time to be cleared and you know at that time you feel so scared and you feel so bad. If I don’t get the visa I have lost everything, you know?
Adviser: And you missed classes too because you waited for your clearance so…
Azadeh: Yeah, exactly!
Adviser: It is stressful.
Azadeh: Very stressful yeah! It was a very stressful process. It is a very bad feeling that I still have. Even though they accepted the policy of multiple entry visa, actually I still have the same problem. I feel, ok, if I want to get my multiple entry visa I have to apply again for a visa…
Jessica: Because you have the one you already had so you have to get a new one…
Azadeh: Yeah! For that one I have to stay a long time to be cleared. And if it doesn’t clear, what happens to me, you know? I still don’t have the feeling that I can go and visit my family. I haven’t met them for more than two years and I am thinking about coming back home next summer which is going to be my forth year and it is going to be almost impossible to stay without seeing them, you know? It’s hard! But I still feel stressful about that process.
Jessica: You have it for the length of your educational stay in the U.S. right? So what is that three months?
Adviser: Three months is just the validity of the stamp that allows you to enter the United States. It is not your visa to stay, it doesn’t give you permission to stay. At the port of entry, the police that interviews you that’s where they give you duration of study and permission to stay for the duration of your studies and they change that. The three months is only for you to enter the U.S., and the “one-entry” changed for the new students applying. Now if you go for a visa interview and get cleared you are eligible to obtain the multiple entry visa but those who, like Azadeh, are already here, they have to go back and have another interview. Because all international students are not able to change their visa once they are in the United States. They have to go back to their country and apply again. So that’s the same thing but the problem is that we have no embassy and that’s what is making it more difficult.
Jessica: So potentially you are going to go through this whole year and have to do the same process that you had to go through the first time.
This was a production of EducationUSAIran.com
