Fulbright: The Government's Best Kept Secret

If any of you are like me and are extremely intimidated by applying for grants and scholarships, please don't stop reading. Before the Fulbright, the only things I had applied for were basically jobs at mediocre restaurants (if you count Applebee's as mediocre...), unpaid internships and college. Spending hours writing an essay in hopes you MIGHT win a few hundred dollar scholarship that may or may not be legit was not appealing to me.

The Fulbright is different. If you'd like to read the official, approved, more eloquent version, visit the site here:
However, I always prefer the unedited version. Here's a quick overview...

Senator William Fulbright founded the program in 1946 to promote mutual understanding between the U.S. and other countries. The U.S. Department of State funds 2,800 U.S. Fulbrighters to study, teach, conduct research, and exchange ideas with non-U.S. citizens in other countries for approximately eight months to a year. There are other programs for non-U.S. students to come to do the same in the U.S., but I'm not really familiar with any details for that.

How the Fulbright is Different from Other Grants
You don't have to have a Ph.D. to participate in the U.S. Student Fulbright program. If you have a bachelor's degree or will have a bachelor's degree by the program start date, you're good to go. You don't have to have a specific background. The program encourages applicants from all disciplines to apply. You can apply to research anything: from dance to biology, research is research. In fact, our program advisor told me when I was applying that the committee likes to see creative project ideas. One Fulbrighter's project was to study the bread-making process in Greece. You can travel to almost any country in the world to complete one.
Things You Should be Aware of Before you Apply
The process is long and arduous. You work on the application in late summer/early fall. You turn in the application in early October and then have a short interview with three panelists a few weeks later. At the end of January, you find out if you were recommended to your requested country and finally in March, you find out if you received the grant or not.
It's not over. Then in late April/early May, you receive terms for your grant and start the paperwork. At this time you must sign and commit based on the following knowledge: what country you'll be in and what you'll be doing (research, teaching, etc) it takes a small leap of faith but so far all has worked as promised. Paciencia y fe