I met her on the Long Island Expressway in New York in the summer of 2017 when I used to work on a bus service. We were 40 minutes away from Manhattan. She was just another passenger, one of the hundreds I interacted with every day. As I handed her red wine in a plastic cup, she said, “Where are you from young man?”
“I am from Pakistan.”
“Pakistan? Oh wow, what do you do over there?”
“Actually, I live in Turkey because I’m going to college over there.”
“What do you study?”
“I’m studying Mechanical Engineering”
“Mechanical Engineering? You must be super smart! My husband just got tenure in the Electrical Engineering department at Harvard. Are you thinking of coming to America for graduate school?”
At the time, neither did I know what she meant by “tenure” nor did I take her compliment of calling me smart with any seriousness. Rather I got stuck on her question as it was the first time someone had asked me directly about my future plans after graduation, which was due less than a year from that moment.
You see, I have a complicated history with American university applications. I was reminded of this while reading my blog from 2013, where I mentioned that I applied to more than 20 universities in America for my undergraduate admission. I remember I was either rejected to all of them or accepted without any scholarship. As I searched online for master’s programs, I discovered that it is extremely rare to get a fully-funded offer for master’s in America and that most international students rely on hefty loans to get through the program. I was even ineligible for the Fullbright program as my undergraduate degree was from outside Pakistan.
To the lady on the bus, I replied, “I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it”, and moved on to another passenger. Unknown to me at that time, that summer was pivotal in giving me the motivation to apply to America for my master’s degree. That summer, I got a chance to meet multiple international students studying in universities like Columbia, Harvard, Georgetown, and MIT on a full scholarship and visit those campuses. After returning back to Turkey for my last two semesters, I applied to some of my favorites universities in America and persevered in obtaining a fully-funded offer from the University of Minnesota Duluth.
Fast-forward to yesterday when I passed my master’s thesis defense. Seconds after I clicked the “End Meeting” button on Zoom, I was reminded of the lady on the bus and heard her voice in my head, “Are you thinking of coming to America for graduate school?” Since that day, I had not only moved to America for my master’s degree but also graduated during a pandemic. Given that my work was mostly experimental, I had to reorganize my thesis multiple times since the closure of university labs in early March. I had to add new sections that were previously unplanned, learn new software techniques, and explain the lack of certain experiments in my project to the thesis committee. And I had to do all of this before the first day of summer because there was no summer funding for my project. There were no graduation parties, commencement address, or even a night out with my friends.
Despite all of this, I feel great. The last two years in Minnesota have been nothing but phenomenal. This is the same state where I lived 10 years ago during my foreign exchange program. I feel so lucky to come back and reconnect with old friends and make a lot of new ones along the way. Perhaps, the best thing that came out of the last two years is the manifestation of the belief that I can do anything I set my mind to! While I am still a victim of imposter syndrome on most days and I still don’t consider myself “super smart”, I have a newfound confidence in my long term goals. What else can I achieve in the coming years? Run a Marathon? Finish a Ph.D.? Visit K2 and Mount Everest? Now, my dreams feel just a little bit closer. Now, when I think about doing something, the voice in my head that screams “I can’t!” sounds just a little bit quieter.