Gilman

The Gilman Scholarship is a special opportunity that every student thinking about going abroad should apply for. I find it special because it's one that gives grants to both students studying abroad and/or doing an internship abroad. I personally found that scholarships, particularly for internships, were not as abundant as for study abroad. Gilman, however, helps out for both situations.

At first, I was skeptical about applying because I had already received another scholarship from one of the departments from my school. Although it was rare for a student to receive both the department and Gilman scholarship for this particular experience, my advisor suggested that I still try because it has been done before. Because the scholarship I already received was not enough to help me out fully, I applied for the Gilman and hoped for the best.

After several months of waiting, I received an email saying that I got the scholarship. It just shows that it never hurts to just try.

The application process is simple. You input some personal information like school transcripts and financial aid. Then there is Statement of Purpose which is essentially an essay about what your plan is, why you are applying, what your internship or study abroad entails, etc. Then you have to come up with a follow-up service project where you explain in detail how you will spread the knowledge and experiences you had abroad and information about the Gilman scholarship. Once you come back from your abroad experience, you have to complete your service project to complete the scholarship requirements.

How to afford studying abroad

As someone from a lower-middle income family and having to rely on scholarships to attend school, I want to say that studying abroad or finding an internship abroad is possible. My best advice is to utilize your resources. There are so many scholarships out there, like the Gilman, that want to actually help students gain that international experience.

Talk to your advisors and do your research on scholarships. I literally got a list of organizations offering scholarships for going abroad and went down the list and applied for each one that was possible for me.

Week 8

I got to follow along with my supervisors to interview a famous Japanese director at his apartment. I didn't appreciate all the smoking during the interview, but it's sadly something I've gotten used to during my times in Japan. Nonetheless, it was a cool experience.

I feel like I learned a lot more than I anticipated in the several weeks. Most importantly, I'm grateful for how much the other interns and I bonded and became friends. We all actually spent our last time together at Tokyo Disneyland with the approval of our supervisor to take one of the days off. It was probably the most memorable moment of my experience in Japan.

My last week as an intern. It was a bittersweet feeling saying goodbye to people in the office. I didn't think I would get attached to the place but after another intern and I took our final photos with people, our feet felt really heavy as we walked out of the building one last time.

Week 7

I got to hang out on set for a commercial shooting for a famous ice cream brand. It was cool to see all the different people, equipment, and such are needed for filming. The room was full of different people like production, brand agency, talent agency, ad agency, food stylists, etc. It's insane because the commercial is supposed to be a couple series of 30-second ads but filming took the entire day to shoot. Nonetheless, I learned a lot even just from watching and I got to see a famous Japanese model/actress on set.

Week 6

The interns and a couple of other English speakers from the office all gathered in a recording studio near our office. We were all a little silly and had fun recording our voices for the commercial. A lot of us were slightly embarrassed shouting into the mic as none of us were professional voice actors. However, by the end of the session, we were all relaxed and having fun.

I excitedly told my friends after work what I did over dinner during a rainstorm. In Japan, they have what is called Tsuyu (梅雨) which is the rainy season during the summer. By this time, I think I experienced my third or fourth typhoon in Japan. However, coming from Oregon, it was like a typical rainstorm but just with a lot more wind. Although there were warnings to stay home during the typhoon, a lot of people didn't care too much about the typhoon. Especially people who were going to Fuji Rock Festival during the weekend. I saw through social media that people were camping out and having a blast in the pouring rainfall.

When I came back to work on a Monday, one of my co-workers was talking about his experience at Fuji Rock and how ecstatic he was to see Kendrick Lamar perform live. I ended up chatting and bonding with my co-worker over our infatuation with the hip-hop artist. I thought it was a comedic moment.

Later that week, the other interns and I got a mini tour of Dentsu, probably the biggest ad agency in Japan. It was interesting to learn about the prestigious company and ask questions about the place and the industry. I was kind of disappointed to hear that despite producing a lot of amazing creative content, most of the workers sit in cubicles all day.

Week 5

I finished my final interview video. I took me so much time to edit down my footage into five minutes, create graphics, input music, and color correct. However, I was proud of my final product. My supervisors really liked what I submitted as well as my interviewee.

Also, something funny happened. My office needed English speakers for a voiceover for a commercial. And so, they had me and the other interns audition in one of the audition rooms located in the basement of our office. It was pretty funny and slightly confusing because they didn't really tell me a lot of details regarding what was actually happening for the commercial.

Week 4

By now my daily task consisted of signing into the office, check my email, check in with a supervisor, and usually editing a video or creating more graphics. At this point, I became an expert at Premiere Pro. Although After Effects is still difficult to use without online tutorials, it became less daunting to use.

On Saturday, one of my supervisors and I met up in a small town to go film my interviewee and her group hold a stargazing workshop for children and their parents at a local elementary school. It was very cool to see a bunch of high-tech telescopes set up on the rooftop of the school. We tried to get as much footage as we could before it got too dark. But once it did get dark, we also got to look through the telescopes and my favorite part was when I got to actually see Saturn. Although I had to work during the weekend, I really didn't mind because it was a really great experience.