If you talk to anyone who has ever lived abroad, among all of their fantastic stories of discovering new places and meeting incredible new friends, they will tell you that somewhere along the way they learned a lot of valuable life lessons too. I just learned my first lesson, and I haven’t even gotten on the plane yet.
If you don’t know me, I am a very “Type A” kind of person. True to my personality, I was ambitious to be on top of every part of the application process for my study abroad program. I was very successful too. I got my application in two weeks early, organized a very thorough study abroad folder, and secured funding before I was even technically accepted to the program. I had heard horror stories of what happened when a student had an issue with their university, scholarship, visa, etc., and I was determined that that would not happen to me. Naturally, despite all of my planning, something went wrong.
In order to apply for a French Student Visa, you must visit the French Consulate in Houston in person with about ten various documents and forms. It was a little difficult to schedule this appointment because (1) the Consulate is in Houston which is fairly far away and (2) they are only open weekday mornings and I am working full time. I managed to get a day off, book a flight, and make my appointment with the Consulate.
Last fall, I had read over the requirements for the appointment. Passport, application forms, French university acceptance letter, etc. It all seemed pretty basic. There was one document that I had assumed was the same thing as my acceptance letter. Much to my chagrin, a week before my scheduled appointment, as I am getting together the required documents, I realize that that document that I had assumed was my acceptance letter was actually something entirely different. I was supposed to fill out another application and wait three weeks for it to process so that I could receive this document required to apply for my visa. Well I didn’t have three weeks. Remember how I said I am a very Type A kind of person? Well, Type A people generally don’t react well when their carefully laid out plans go awry. I was no exception.
Long story short, I was able to reschedule my appointment and flight so it really didn’t end up being as big of a deal as I made it out to be. The moral of this story isn’t to be so detailed and cautious that you never mess anything up ever. Although it is very important to try to avoid making mistakes, it is much more important to know how to handle the mistakes that we are inherently going to make by staying calm, taking responsibility, and putting our energy into fixing the problem.
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