My F1 Visa Experience

Place: Mumbai Consulate Day & Time: 13^th June 2007, 8:15AM

Got to the counter for interview at around 9:30AM
Visa Officer (VO): A cute and co-operative, blonde lady

VO: Hi (smile)
Me: Hi (full smile)
VO: What are you going to do in the US?
Me: Master’s in Computer Engineering
(She repeated after me … Master’s in Computer Engineering … typed something)
VO: OK, so who is going to sponsor your education?
Me: My grandfather and father are jointly going to sponsor my education. I’ve also borrowed an educational loan of 4 lacs and have got a 40% tuition waver from the University
VO: What does your father do?
Me: He is in business
VO: What type of business?
Me: Both my father and grandfather are commission agents of food grains and jaggery.
VO: Do you know what your father’s annual income is?
Me: The combined income of my father and grandfather is over X lacs per annum.
VO: OK, How much do you have in savings?
Me: XX lacs
(She typed something again …I guess she calculated the amount in dollars …)
VO: So how are you going to manage for your second year’s education?
Me: As I said mam, I have borrowed educational loan of 4 lacs and I’ve got a 40% tuition waver from UFL so the total tuition fees for my entire MS course is around 16K dollars… (Before I finished she asked another question...)
VO: What did you do in your UG?
Me: Masters … sorry BE in Computer Science and Engineering (nervous smile)
VO: When did you finish your BE?
Me: In 2005
VO: What did you do after that?
Me: I’m working in XXX since then.
VO: What is your annual income?
Me: over X lacs per annum
VO: ok, your visa is approved (smile)
Me: Thank you (smile)
(I was in a hurry to leave the darn chamber... wasn’t expecting such a long interview)
VO: Have a great day
Me: Same to you mam (a huge smile again)

Came out of the consulate, was a feeling like having won a battle.

I believe I had such a long interview because I was the last one in the queue, nobody was waiting and she had all the time in the world to interrogate me. Besides this, I think she didn’t’ understand my father’s business.

An Incident Worth Remembering

One motto I believe in is – “Nothing is impossible”.
If you give your best you can achieve what you want.

One of the challenges that I tackled successfully is the incident of scoring high marks in the last semester of my engineering.

It went like this – I had written my first semester papers very well and was expecting a score of more than 70%. But when the result for first semester was out, I was shocked. I had secured 66%, my lowest score in last five semesters (but fortunately, high enough to be distinction). One may think how can one be shocked even after a distinction but this is what i am. This was something unexpected. I had decided at the beginning of my engineering to score better marks every year. I was quite successful doing this. My marks were as follows –
First year – 65.86%
Second year – 70.33 %
Third year – 71.40 %
So to achieve my target of being better every year, I had to score more than 76.8% in the final semester which was a huge ask. During the same time period one of my friend gave me another challenge, he asked me whether I could make my average of engineering count more than 70% which meant I would have to score a mammoth 79% to do that. I accepted that challenge.

I gave my heart and soul for doing this. I slept for 5 hours a day in the final month of my exam. I got so anxious that I used to talk in my sleep about the subjects I was studying (according to my cousin). I secluded myself for that one month. I kept saying to myself that I should never let my hopes die. Finally I finished the exam. I didn’t know how much I would score. What I knew was I had given my best efforts.

When the final results came out my joy knew no bounds. I had secured 79.86% in my final semester. So my final year score was 73.46% which was better than my all other scores. To add to that I even managed to get my aggregate of engineering count more than 70%.
Thus I was able to confront and overcome the challenge I had accepted.

Finally I would like to say - “If we start doing what we should and then what we can, we will find out someday that we are doing what is supposed to be the impossible.”