Unsure if the Alfie Scholars Program is right for you?
English is Afrikaan’s fifth language, so he was worried about crafting well-written essays for the Alfie Scholars program’s application. He also worried whether his story was relevant.
Most of the students who apply to the Alfie Scholars Program at Seattle University have had some doubts:
Lia felt overwhelmed at first because of the self-reflection essays and finding time to pinpoint what was most important to her.
Mashaal was worried she wouldn’t be able to fit into a new school and new community.
Phanghouy underestimated herself, yet at the end of the day, she realized that she could do it and chose to try so that she didn’t feel regret for a missed opportunity.
No matter what worries you have, if you are a community-college transfer student who wants to make a difference in the world, you should apply today at alfiescholars.org/apply.
Transcript
So the doubts that I had were like English; I mean English is my fifth language and I had a very difficult time. It was scary in terms of I had to write multiple papers and read a paper and then do a deep reflection on it, write about my leadership skill and I even didn't know if that was something that I could talk about or people would relate to talking about my leadership skill in the refugee camp where I lived, so I didn't know if my story was relevant. I also didn't know if my English would be delivered in a way that that would make me be selected. The circumstance that I was in made me, pushed me to do it, first of all, you know. Getting connected to people and asking them questions like that you know, if you know a student or a teacher or an advisor somebody who can boost your confidence and talk to you about a particular application or something you're interested in I think I would encourage that which is really nice so that's also something that helped me. So when I looked at the application, I immediately was a little bit overwhelmed with the essays and the topics that I wanted to learn about because I really have to do a lot of self-reflection to really pinpoint what was important to me so I think that was kind of my greatest doubt; thinking that, “Can I even accomplish that, can I can I make it possible to have my care for these social issues come across in paper?” Initially transferring, I was very scared not really sure that I would be able to fit in into a new school, a new community and within the Alfie scholarship and within the cohort that I'm in currently I felt that I could truly be myself and all of my identities. So whether I was like bilingual, whether I was kind of an international student, like was technically studying abroad or whether you know it was based on like the values that I held dear and like my own faith and how that would you know sort of blend together, and how I'd be able to communicate that with other people. I also doubt about myself because like I'm a kind of person that always like underestimated about myself I always think that “Oh this is like too good, I might be not like you know good fit for that” but at the end of the day I'm just telling myself that everyone can do it so I can do it too. At least I try even though I cannot get it or anything, I'm not regret. I really felt like a sense of just camaraderie with everyone, I felt that even as we were discussing what topics we were most passionate about when it came to writing research papers or the kind of things that we were seeing going on in our own respective communities, in our world, the Alfie cohort and the scholarship space sort of gave me that platform to not only be myself but be confident in that and I wasn't really that before ,I wasn't very sure of that, but when I came into the Alfie [Scholars] they definitely were very supportive of all the parts of my identity and I felt very, very welcome.
