YSEALI Academic Fellowship by Sakhone
Get to know the author
Sabaiydee, I am Sakhone. I am an alumnus of YSEALI Fall Academic Fellowship 2019 - Social Entrepreneurship and Economic Development at the Brown University.
In short, I will use abbreviation "SE" for "Social Entrepreneurship and Economic Development"
About YSEALI Academic Fellowship program (briefly)
The YSEALI Academic Fellowship is five-week exchange program at U.S. college/university for youth between the age of 18 and 25 following by 3 themes:
-Civic Engagement.
-Environmental Issue and National Resources Management.
-Social Entrepreneurship and Economic Development.
YSEALI Academic Fellowship experience sharing
- Online learning
One month before departure, all selected participants of SE theme will study an online course of the Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Social Change with the University of PEACE (UPEACE) from Costa Rica.
This course enhanced participants to be well-prepared especially business plan/project plan and theory of change. If we completed the course, we will receive a certificate and small seed grant for our project.
2. Classes
We have learnt many classes from high-quality, famous and successful entrepreneurs, professor, community leaders and so on. My most favorite class was Design Thinking class. We did an activity - drawing a dream house. The lesson learnt of this activity is human-centered design that we should think off our target audience (users/customers/ consumers/or project beneficiaries) for a better problem solution.
3. Community Activities
We had visit and participate in many workshops with local communities. The Swearer Center for Public Service is also a great host for us at Brown University. One of my favorite activity is the spider net (not sure how to call), which one fellow will choose and throw the silk roll to another fellow and then tell the connection or what common between two fellows. Lesson learnt of this activity is that everyone has own our values as diversity but at least we will have common things with other people, if we connect each other with same purpose we will become a strong group as a “community asset”.
4. Pitching
In YSEALI programs, usually, we have a project pitching — to present what issues we would like to solve. As preparation from learning online course and our theme is SE, so we presented our project as social entrepreneurship concept. This time, we didn’t do like very intense comparing to other YSEALI Regional Workshops that they compete for grant awards, just give feedback and help each other (but we are serious lolz because we wanted to do our best in our projects).
5. Study Tour
After learning at our host university for 3–4 weeks, we also collaborate with University of Connecticut (UCON)— we visit UCON and UCON also visit Brown. Also, during the last week of program, we joined together to traveled to many places in different states like a map below:
- SE visit
We visit many kind of SE such as co-working space, business consultant center, co-op market, rooftop agriculture, SE shops, etc. The most impressive SE for me is “Impact Everything” with slogan “Every purchase has a purpose”. We can buy products to support vulnerable people in different causes and different country such as hemp backpack to support sustain education in Nepal, bracelet to support survivors from human trafficking, etc.
- Educational visit
We visited one of the most well-known STEM education, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); one of the most famous university in the world, Harvard University; and one of Ivy League University, Yale University.
- History and cultural place visit
I can’t list the name of the places since we visit more than 20 places. I didn’t know much about American politics and cultures but as history lover I really enjoy visit those places especially organizer give 3 hours at the National Museum of African American History, which is not enough for me to explore lolz.
6. Cultural Exchange
Besides academic things, we also had some sessions to exchange culture with Brown students, culture night and visit host family. Besides program agenda, we also exchange with other fellows (by exchanging food, sharing our tradition stories, etc) and some activities within the campus such as Water Fire Festival at Brown.
- Other Privileges/benefits
Every fellows registered and had Brown ID card which we can have many privileges and access to other opportunities such as participating event at Brown campus (ex: StartUp @Brown, Design Week, Venture Café, Career Fair…) or even got a discount from Amazon e-commerce website lolz.
*Remark: the duration of program might be different due to Covid-19 situation.
- Memories
Those sharing experiences above become such a valuable moments especially spending life with other South East Asian fellows at USA. Not only share ideas and help each other but also share funny moment and other experiences.
- Life as YSEALI alumni
Now I agreed with the sentences: “You will feel old when you become alumni”. Although, my YSEALI Academic ends I still keep contribute to YSEALI network such as sharing info session, implementing project, participating alumni gathering and as well support other YSEALI alumni’s project (as I support the Guiding Helper Workshop at Savannakhet province). One thing that I would like to share is that you can research and ask alumni what projects did they do and currently have? because not only you implement our project alone but we can cross project with other South East Asian fellow, fellow from same cohort, other YSEALI alumni, or even US alumni.
Tip and process of application
*Note: Mainly will talk about Laos application processes, other countries might be different.
- Application Form
- YSEALI member
First of all, you need to register YSEALI member by sign up an e-mail and will receive regularly news from YSEALI.
- Work and Volunteer Experiences, Active Professional Membership
List down the related experiences into this part. Myself, for instance, I put exchange program on theme: Economic Development, the awards of regional business plan competition; these two experiences are directly match with SE theme I chose.
- Personal Statement (Essay)
Question: “What about your background and/or interests makes you competitive for the YSEALI Academic Institutes? What will you contribute to the YSEALI Fellowship? How do you expect your participation in the Fellowship affecting your community, country, or the ASEAN region? How will the Fellowship affect you personally?”
Due to the essay question have sub-question in one main question. My suggestion would be try to analyze and understand the key points in those sub-question. One tip for me is to brainstorm and arrange ideas by using MindMap.
Then, try to connecting the dots and taking a look which supporting ideas we want to choose on essay writing or depending on your prefer essay styles (narrative, 5-paragraphs or other essay type). After that, write an essay, read many times and don’t forget to hit those important key points from the essay questions.
- Video
The cohort after, one more task to do is to create a short video. In my personal experience on applying other scholarships, besides the structure the recruiting team give, other idea can put into videos in order to be creative, funny or well-structured (but depend on your skills as well). I think they also want to see communication skill as well as presentation skill how well you can tell your story/project?
2. Interview Round
The total selected candidates around 21-24 people or 7-8 people for each theme and the interview usually happen only half day in the morning, so it's only 5-7 minutes per person. What I would like to say is that you should be precise with your answer with your limited time. Normally, the interview will start with introduce your self (for me 1.5-2 minutes is ok). After that, the possible question prompt could be:
- What is your background? What scholarship did you participate?
- What social issue do you see? As a young leader, what change do you want to do?
- Why did you apply for YSEALI/theme(Civic Engagement, Environment, or SE)? What do you want to learn from YSEALI?
- What is the project do you want to do? Why?
- Project: "is it necessary to have a project?"
Okay! Let's imagine this. Mr. A apply scholarship without project idea while Ms.B apply scholarship with project idea. If you a recruiting team member, who will you choose?. If I was a recruiting member, I will go for Ms. B since she is the potential candidate who is more ready, well-prepared, and can create maximize impacts to YSEALI community, country and as well as region. However, it's fine as well if you don't have a concrete project idea yet. But you should show your passion and deeply understanding on the issue that you want to solve. In case, you are selected you can explore and learn through class and also other ASEAN participants. - Theme/topic
Turn back to April 2015, it was my first time to participate the Set Fire into Your Self Workshop and also my first time getting to know SE concept. I feel fall in love in this concept so much.
As I mentioned, there are 3 themes in Academic Fellowship. You might be hesitate to choose the theme due to your difference between study field, passion/interest, or as well as project you want to do.
Let’s me share this. One point, that might be affect. It’s about MATH — I mean POSSIBILITIES. The quotas, YSEALI give number of selected candidates based on the population in each country, not equal quota for every country. If I didn’t remember wrong, the most selected candidates is from Indonesia (the largest population in ASEAN) accounted for 21 participants — 7 for each theme. For the large population country in ASEAN, might be not much different. But Laos is small country, the total selected quota is 7 — (Civic 2–4, Environment 1–3, SE 1–2 quotas, the numbers of each theme have changed based on country priorities and host universities). My first time, I would like to apply SE but my background is very less on this and the competition is very high since SE is only 1–2 quotas while I have experienced doing some volunteer project and Civic is 4 quotas, so I decided to applied for Civic Engagement and passed to interview round.
“I have a dream” — Martin Luther King Jr.
However, I figure out that my passion is suitable for SE theme rather than Civic Engagement. After that, I had decided to keep applying for SE theme even if it’s low possibility and high competition. In every time I apply, I usually reflect with my self what did I do good and what should I improve. I always keep learning and collecting other experiences as well such as participating the business plan contest, practicing English skill, joining a volunteer group, doing social projects, writing my final thesis about SE…from those collective experiences I hope that I will be the potential candidate and was selected in one day.
“You can’t let your failures define you — you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time” — Barack Obama
Four years later, on my sixth time application, I was the alternate/substitute. At that time, I have project idea and some experience, but then I realize that what I really want to learn from YSEALI?. When I figure out, then it became the last jigsaw and finally! finally! I was selected on my seventh time application.
“You have never fail until stop trying’’ — Albert Einstein
- Final Thought
“Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try” — John F. Kennedy
It’s okay if you are not selected, at least you try. If you apply, I would say you win yourself already that you are brave enough to apply. You still have other opportunities to apply like other YSEALI programs or even other scholarship as well. If you are selected, it’s gonna be a fruitful outcome from your hard work. Fighting!
“This could be you!” — US Embassy Vientiane’s Campaign
- Other sources
YSEALI website: https://asean.usmission.gov/yseali/
YSEALI Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/yseali/
US Embassy Vientiane’s FB page: https://www.facebook.com/usembassyvte/
Short guiding video (Lao language): https://www.facebook.com/282529539039158/videos/407366440175299/
Live video recorded (Lao language): https://www.facebook.com/282529539039158/videos/2443522582602033/
UPEACE course: https://centre.upeace.org/onlinecourses/online-entrepreneurship-course/
Lastly, thank you for reading till the end and please do apologize for any mistakes.
