The 2009 cohort of Edmund S. Muskie Fellowship Program participants embarked on their U.S. experiences at the August 2-5 Welcome Workshop held at Gallaudet University [2] in Washington, DC. Several current Muskie fellows from the 2008 cohort were on hand alongside IREX staff to provide advice on succeeding in graduate school, locating housing, managing personal budgets, finding a community service project, and securing an internship. The event also laid the foundation for successful fellowships by providing an opportunity for the new Muskies to network with one another, forming a support system to help them navigate graduate study in the U.S.
“The orientation was full of information about academic integrity, housing, living and studying, to name just a few!” said one fellow. “Supporting handouts for all sessions and the participant handbook are so useful. It was a good idea to allow fellows from various countries in the same field of study to get to know each other.”
The current Muskie fellow mentors provided helpful academic advice to the new cohort as they start their graduate classes. “Although we will have lots and lots of reading to accomplish, I discovered from previous year fellows that we're not supposed to literally read every page and every paragraph carefully,” shared another new fellow. “It’s much more important to gain effective note taking skills to extract the most intrinsic and key information from the reading material.”
Others left with concrete ideas for community service projects and strategies for the internship search. “I've been engaged in dozens of community service activities both in the U.S. and my home country, but I couldn't think of a community activity that'd be related to my field of study before the session,” reflected a fellow. “I saw an excellent example on one of the handouts and that was like an ‘aha’ moment for me.”
The Welcome Workshop concluded with a luncheon featuring speakers and guests from the Department of State and several foreign embassies. Mary Ellen Koenig, Chief of the Europe/Eurasia Branch of the Office of Academic Exchanges of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, gave a warm welcome to the incoming fellows and congratulated them on becoming finalists through a competitive selection process. Over 3,000 candidates applied for 141 available fellowships in the 2009 cycle.