Lessons from my SUSI Experience

Outside the Capitol, Washington, DC

 

The following has been posted on behalf of Meridian’s SUSI alum, Guyen Galindev 21 years old, Mongolian University of Science and Technology.

Completing this Study in US Institutes (coordinated by Meridian International Center) has impacted on my future in the following ways:

New Lifelong Friendships

These have been formed not only with my wonderful host family but also with people from school, fellow exchange students and my mentors. I now feel comfortable approaching strangers and find it easy to form new friendships. I am no longer as anxious or shy about meeting new people. The building of my interpersonal skills will help me greatly in the future as I feel like I can now communicate easily with anyone.Therefore I liked the mentors communication method when they were teaching and explaining about related topics which I did not know about. They explained as friends in different interesting ways. I want to change my country’s education’s system and make it like the American system, not just typical readings and workbooks. In my opinion, we the Mongolians need more focus on communication systems like mentoring and mentorship with the students.

My Career Goals

Studying six weeks at George Mason University has allowed me to find myself and think deeply about what I hope to achieve in the future. That program has given me the time to decide exactly who and what I want to be. Now I know what area I should focus more in my career. Also, I have a new goal to study at George Mason University as an economist. Why am I choosing this major to study? Because economy is a fundament of all branches. Now I am studying Computer Graphic Designing, it is an interesting branch to show and to tell for society what you think in your brain by using art and computer software. Today is information technology’s era and the computer graphic designing is profitable and competitive field. For me, I like my major and this is a tool of earning money but I need to build up my own company so I want to study as an economist at George Mason University. I saw benefit of studying in abroad from this program. First, if I study abroad such as in America, England, and Italy, I have to study their languages. For instance: If I go to study in Italy, I have benefit to study three languages in one place such as Italian, Spanish and French except English so I recognized during the program that most of Americans know Spanish and some information written as both English and Spanish. Knowing a lot of foreign languages ability is good for taking information that what you are interested in and what you need to know more deep inside in. Therefore, it depends on what major field are you interested in. For me, America is the most powerful economic country. There are lot of powerful and famous multinational companies such as Citigroup, GMC, Dow Jones, Walt Disney, Pixar, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo,…etc. So I really need to study as an economist to widen my knowledge and education level to achieve my future goals in America. That is the my academic experience from this program. Second, now I am working on my mini-project proposal from Meridian International for people who have the problem with vision so I have to build up new networking and connections with internal and external companies to cooperate with them working as their social responsibility to fundraise the project budget. I think this is a good thing that challenges me how can you help and what can you do in your society and it can be a good experience and practice to be a leader.

Personal Growth

Having the opportunity to travel abroad has given me greater awareness of my own national identity. It has also allowed me to widen my perspective and become self-sufficient. I am now always thinking about things from a broader point of view. My world has been expanded significantly and with it I have expanded as a person. I knew that I have to do more hardwork and develop on my own, not just studying. I have some American friends during the program and I realized that the students do really hardworking and manipulative with any other things. For instance: They get up early in the morning around at four to five o’clock and they run, go to the fitness, do part time jobs related to their major field. Actually I work for the big mining company in my country while I study but there in America students work on their personal growth like focusing on their health, sports activity and interesting while there are studying. That is one thing I have to have this kind of time management and develop my personal growth. Also, this program gave me and showed how the education wealth is powerful, furthermore, it showed me what ways did they use that today’s America built up and highly developed. Actually, I am jealous about that and now I have a full of inspiration to develop my country as like America. “Our Wealth is Our Brain” this is a definition of my experience.