What Type of Student Should Apply to the Alfie Scholars Program?

Are you unsure whether the Alfie Scholars program is right for you? Four Alfie Scholars share what helped them know that they were the type of students who should apply for the program. Abem talks about wanting to be around others who would push him to be the best version of himself and keep him moving toward his dreams.

Afrikaan realized the power in his stories of the challenges that he’s faced in his life and of his successes in overcoming them.

Lia reminded herself that she always gave her best in what she has tried in her life. The knowledge that she tries her best and succeeds is what inspired her to apply.

Yao was inspired by the Alfie Scholars mission of growing civility leaders who want to make the world a better place.

Learn more about the program and apply at alfiescholars.org/apply.

Transcript

You can customize it and apply it to whatever it is that you're into and that you want to do, and it's like for me personally, even though I was just an undergrad, I knew that eventually I wanted to get to law school but still was not really sure about what my long-term career plans would look like. And so, all the experiences that I do gather are just giving me a taste of different things, just so I am prepared for whatever those opportunities that come across my path in the future are.

Knowing that there is a cohort of students with a shared vision like me, even though we have different specific objectives in our lives and careers, I just knew that it would push me to also keep being my better self and become something I potentially wouldn't even know to expect in my own future.

The key term for me is getting involved with everything and trying out. I think, despite the doubts and all of that, it's important to try things and see if you get selected or not. I’m becoming conscious about this, where my story is actually a big strength of mine where I don't get to be afraid or something like that, but in the beginning it was an ultimate thing where I don't have any other option if I don't apply to this. So I think it’s important to get involved, and for me, I wanted to make sure that I got involved into things, so I am involved! One of the things that I told myself to apply was, “Even the things that I didn't do or the things that I did do, the things that I did do, I did great!” I did them like I survived, but according to me they were perfect. I accomplished something, I learned something, which was all that's important in experiences in life. So I’ve always got good grades; everything that I did, every project, I gave a hundred and ten percent of myself. So I told myself that I am the type of student that gives their all, and if I were to be given this opportunity, I would continue to do that, and that kind of forced me to be like, “Maybe they won't say no, maybe they will accept me because I do give everything that I have for the opportunities that I get.”

It's actually the paper that Paula wrote and had us read and write a paper about, as part of the application, that was really inspiring, because it talked about incivility in society and how that really kind of just degrades humans and just creates this toxic environment for people to live in. And that's something I have experienced a lot, and I have struggled a lot with that. And I was amazed to find there are people who care about this issue. That was the thing that just really was astonishing to me.