The hiccups in my search for masters scholarship.

Hello guys,
I have certain situation regarding my search for MS.c admision and 'full' scholarship so I thought I should post it here for discusion. I must not be shy to say that I'm so poor financially to fund my masters degree which is why I crave fully funded masters scholarship. I believe EF is not only about essays writings but also about cross-fatalisation of ideas about academic-related predicaments. So here is mine. Please read and give candid opinion. Thanks in advance

1) MY STRENGHTS: Without doubt I have good academic and experiential achievement to pursue the masters programme successfully: i) I have 1s class in my BS.c degree, ii) I have five years work experience iii) several leadership and academic awards iv) a yet to be published academic book I wrote for undergraduates in my field of study including several useful and related Writing Samples that are alreadily published.

2) MY WEAKNESSES: these include i) no money, ii) no parents to sponsor, iii) not even for application fee. Sometimes when I come across university that awards full scholarship, I often have problem with payment even if I am willing to pay application fee because iv) I do not have credit card which I consider the safest means of payment online and to get one in Nigeria seems tougher, v) I do not have GMAT or GRE but am willing to write it as soon as I am able to raise cash.

3) MY RESOLUTION: Having considered my status as highlighted above, I resolved that i) I will find universities in UK, USA or Canada where my programme of choice (Industrial and Labour Relations or HRM) is offered. ii) application should be free and online, iii) there should be a fully funded scholarship, any teaching or research assistant work or any on-campus jobs that will enable me fund my study and cater for living expenses, iv) GMAT or GRE should not be a requirement v) I will also be applying for scholarship from other external bodies, vi) I will apply to about four universities just 'to test' my competitive strength in winning admission with scholarship since I do not intend to begin the programme this year.

4) OUTCOMES: after I did a seriouse search, I found that i) all universities in Canada who offer my course require application fee (well there may be some who I am yet to come across) and few of them require GMAT or GRE, ii) Most universities in UK that offer my course require neither application fee nor GRE (this made it easy for me to do my test-running in UK, u know testing my chances of winning admision) But of all these school who would not require app-fee and GRE, only Westminster has fully funded scholarship. Others only have part-tuition awards without living expenses.iii) I have not actually done seriouse work on US but the little search I did revealed that US univ. dont take GRE and GMAT for joke and majority of those who offer my course and who can award full scholarship require application fee. I do not have anyone abroad that i can contact to use his or her Credit Card to help pay my app-fee so that I can refund. Besides, to be sincere with myself I dont even have the money. It will not favour me to claim that I'm heavy when actually I'm light.

Finally guys, when I sent application to four UK universities in February this year, by March three of them had already sent me 'unconditional' offer. Salford gave me a £3000 scholarship (considered the highest and most prestigeous award in the schoo) and asked me to pay £4500 deposit, Queen Mary does not have scholarship for graduates in Business School but require only £1000 payment of deposit before the end of June. Durham asked for £2000 deposit. I hap applied to Durham because they have two fully funded scholarships (the Commonweath Sheard Scholarship) for African masters applicants. Since the offer did not come with the nomination for the scholarship, I guess I did not make it. Westminster who has up to 6 fully funded award and no app-fee nor GRE has not replied me till date. I have sent several emails but none is replied to.

I trust that ideas needed to tackle this predicament lies on EF here so please people, help look into the above and help me in any way you can. I will really appreciate it. THANK YOU.

yep, for sure!

Congratulations on those great scholarships you were offered! You must be very frustrated because of the lack of resources.

Well, how would you raise money to travel to the school? I guess you will need money before anything else.

Here is my contribution:
- Get a Paypal account.
- Start a blog at Google's "Blogger" platform, and use it to sell your services.
- Then, go get an Elance menbership and bid on jobs offered by people in wealthy nations.

Offer services that you are good at... what are you very good at? Get paid by people who hire you through Elance, and you will soon by making decent money. That money, in addition to your scholarships, might help you get to where you need to be!!

Good luck!! You deserve success. Do not get discouraged, even if it takes 10 years.

:-)

Ten years is too long a wait!

Here's how I think it will work out for you.

You've a strong desire to study abroad in one of the countries you mentioned. Your antenna is already finely attuned and you are likely to pick up any worthwhile information in your own surroundings which can make this work out for you. Don't do anything desperate, nor illegal. Something will come along that will at least transport you to the shores of one of these countries.

Once there, you will likely find yourself in a very abject condition and dependent on someone who helped you get there. You will want to pay your debt to him or her, so you will need to get some basic employment. There are jobs that are under the radar of the authorities because the local citizenry will just not do them, like distributing newspapers. Or you might find something menial in a Nigerian restaurant courtesy someone from your country. Be prepared to shed everything but your self-respect. However you might think of the people from these countries now, the general masses want to hold very tightly to their idea of the superiority of their race.

Since you're an educated person, stick to those traits which accompany such mental development: integrity, respectfulness, tolerance. These will be severely put to test. Ultimately, a path will open. Some opportunity taking you upwards to your own goal of higher education.

Hmmm! Thank you so much Kevin and Rajiv. I really respect and appreciate your thoughtful opinion. I will continue to strive hard to achieve my career goal.

However, Kevin, I'm aware of google blogspot, I know how to use it but not how to use it for profit because I don't know what service I can render for profit. Well, I'll continue trying and I'll try out the "Elance" stuff you mentioned. Have not actually heared of it before now. Thank you so much for the advice. Will get back when I have further questions.

I'll not fail to mention how glad I am to be participating in EF. Kudos to the initiators!

Well, your English is excellent. If you are fluent in more than one language you can translate for people, tutor people, etc.

You'll have to look around for ways to make money doing what you do best. I'm lucky, because I can make money by writing and editing web content. If you check out Elance, you might find that some of the jobs people are doing for others are actually things you can do.

And for what it's worth... see if this helps you in your decision making!

Kevin thank you very much for your help, but i have little problem. I just realised that paypal does not give room for Nigerians to open account with them. Some suggest we find someone residing in the US who would help open it for you and if you are lucky to do that and you want to be operating from Nigeria, you still have to get an internet with US IP. I don't see any sense in that so i want to ask you about other once i came across 'AlertPay, Trialpay and Plimus' please Kevin, which one should i go for? I know you do have some knowledge about this stuff and i am eager to know more.

By the way thanks for the video, i cannot view it now because i am using a third-word generation phone to browse but i will view it when i get to cafe or when i have some cash to buy internet access to my laptop. Thanks once again!

Sounds like you really need to bust out of Nigeria. I'm inspired by your ambition!


I don't know. I actually know very little. I am not good at this stuff. I only know about Paypal. You'll have to be the one to find out about the other payment methods.

You know, though, Elance will mail you a check. I bet you can work through Elance and have a check mailed to you. I hope so, anyway!! If so, you do not need to set up online payments at all.

Yet, after you start a free blog to promote your service, you really should get an account with one of those services you listed. That way, people can go right to your website and pay you. Do not get discouraged! :-)

So... if you still have a scholarship to a good school... how much money will you need to save in order to go there and get started?

Hmm, well like i wrote in this thread, out of the 3 schools, only Salford University offered a £3000 scholarship reducing my payable fee to £7104 out of which i'm required to pay £4500 as deposit before the end of June to secure my place. A friend told me flight fee from Nigeria to UK should cost me £900 pounds. So yes i will need to safe like £6000 at least. This is for Salford alone. For Durham, i should need like £3500 because the deposit in Durham is only £2000. For Queen Mary, i think £2500 should get me started coz they only require £1000 as deposit.

However, I believe with hardwork and commitment i should find a scholarship that will cater for my tuition fee and living expenses if i try hard. I just need to work little harder and pray. To be sincere with you Kevin, i really do appreciate your concern on this issue but i'm begining to give up all the admission and concentrate on making small money for myself while continue my search for 'full sponsorship' come 2012. This is what am trying to do right now. What do you think?

That will be excellent. It's inspirational to know someone who is a methodical thinker, working toward the important goals.

Here is an exercise to try: Imagine you have just completed your degree. What will you do next? During this time you spend saving money and seeking a scholarship, maybe you should interview some people who work for organizations that you might like to work for in the future. (Everyone loves to be interviewed if it will not take too long.)

Maybe you could even work for one of those organizations in some capacity.

Check out the EssayForum Contributor Page to become a Contributor and add that to your resume! :-)

Because of the Internet, businesspeople are noticing that the world changes so quickly that higher education cannot keep up. The most important thing to do might be to develop a PORTFOLIO of your work using an important, marketable skill. What kind of work do you like to do? What are you good at? How many languages do you speak/write fluently?

I hope you don't mind all the questions...

No no no, not at all. Fact is i feel comfortable interacting with people like you especially when i am the one recieving help hand.

About EF contributor, i will check that later. I think my device can't work perfectly with it now. 10ks for that.
Well if you ask me the kind of work i love doing, i'll say academic writing and teaching (in social and management sciences). I love academic work more than anything. I love to write academic work like research article, journals, and help people edit their work. If provided with resources i love to find a problem around and write an article spelling out the need for research in a particular area. In fact if i could get a professor whom could take me for a research assistance (even if i will be serving him for free) i will be very glad. But here is my problem; i am not sure if my skills meet up with global standard. I had finished my B.Sc before i noticed that teaching in my country is far below global standard (one of the reasons why i vowed not to study in my country for masters degree) so i kind of doubt my capabilities in this areas. Unfortunately many student from my country will not even spend their money for internet access to look for help online, i would have been very confident that i can work for anyone in my country to satisfaction because what majority of them consider the best, to me, is at the level of mediocrity.

When i viewed some of the academic work postings in Elance, i saw plenty of proposals spelling out their 10 to 15 years experience in academic writing, some of them even have plenty of sample work to display. So i get a little challenged when i see people's profile when i don't have much talent to display.

But Kevin, i think i might be wrong doubting my capacity. For example i have a female friend (my ex) who studies nursing at Edinburgh (not sure of the spelling) UK. She left Nigeria two years ago. This girl beliefs so much in me that she would call me and give her assignments, term papers with instructions to me. Nursing is not my decipline but this girl would keep praising me for work done perfectly well. After each assignment she would send me more than enough money for work done. It was when i saw things at Elance that something told me she already knows that people get payed for such kind of work. No wonder why she'd insist on remunerating me on almost all paper i write. Even when she was contesting for an elective position in the school over there, i was the one who wrote all the speeches, design her posters, campaign slogans and messages. She is my ex so i always do those work for her as a friend but she would insist on rewarding me.

Kevin, if there is a way i can create a business out of this and get payed, i will love to. At least pending the time i will get formal employment here in Nigeria. You know as a fresh graduate here you have to serve the country for 1 year (for free) before anyone can employ you. And i will begin my service by July 5, so if you can help me with ideas. You'll be suprise with the result i'll produce with your ideas.

School is not what raises your standard. If you want to write perfectly, get these two books:
The Elements of Style by Strunk and White
&
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

These 2 books can teach you more than you may have learned in school. And they are funny sometimes!

Your writing is already at a high level. I think you can link possible professors and other people to this thread, and it will show them your seriousness and aptitude.


YES! I know... that is why I mentioned that this may take a long time. BUT if you write a letter for someone, write a resume for someone, write an article for someone... all you really need is 3 samples for your portfolio.

And those people do not have as much experience as they say they have. ;-)

Your advantage is that you might work for less money because you are still learning. Many employers want to hire an enthusiastic young person who is willing to work for less $$ than the rest of us. That is what I had to do when I was first starting to write.

Well, I love your enthusiasm. I wish I had the ability to employ people!
Anyway, the stuff you did for your x might be the same kinds of things you do for people who hire you through elance. WILL SHE LET YOU USE ANY OF THOSE PRESENTATIONS in your portfolio??? That is the question. And WHAT else have you accomplished that you can upload to your portfolio?

Take one step at a time, and memorize this haiku:

A portfolio,
more important than college,
not even kidding...

Yeah, thank you so very much for your kind advice, i think i have gotten enough clues to start with. I will ask my friend if she will let me use those papers in my portfolio. I will check on those books and see how helpful they can be. I will also find how i can link some people possibly professors to this thread, become a contributor on here while focusing on building my portfolio...

Honestly Kevin, I cannot thank you enough. I'm certain that in a way, I'm indebted to you and you can count on that.

Right now, I'd better get to work. I must confess that I'm happy signing out of this thread and will be back as soon as i get further questions. 10ks so much pal, you are great.

Nope, it's your proactive effort and self-expression that made me want to spend some time on this thread, and those same qualities will inspire other people to give you opportunities, too. I look forward to seeing what accomplishments you make in the years to come.

Okay, good luck, Kunle!