How I Secured a Fully Funded Master’s at University of Notre Dame, USA Through the Fulbright Colombia Scholarship

My name is Maria Camila Salamandra, and I am from a small city in Colombia called Pereira. I graduated with my bachelor’s degree in law from Universidad de Antioquia in Medellín. After my graduation as a lawyer, I wanted to first gain professional experience before doing a master's degree. I got a job in a research project about informal mining in rural Colombia. My role was to accompany informal miners in their legal formalization process while reporting all the advancements to a team of economists who would turn those reports into data that could help identify if legal processes work as a barrier for legal mining in Colombia. I was learning public law while participating in research. Even though my salary was not the best, that experience was quite interesting. However, I didn’t fall there out of nowhere. In my academic path, I was already very active. I was part of student movements against social injustices, and in my last semesters, I applied for my internship in the Governor’s office, where I ended up in the mining affairs office. That’s the main reason why I was able to have that first job after graduation, since I knew the topic from before.

I talked about all these things because when I decided that it was time to pursue my master’s degree – after a year working on this research project – I not only had my work experience but I had leadership experience and other jobs before graduating that strengthened my application. A year from graduation, as mentioned above, I started to feel that I wanted to know more, but I didn’t know specifically what master’s degree I wanted. I started a second job as a consultant for an NGO that worked with Gender Based Violence and victims of the Colombian Armed Conflict. Taking into consideration my background in student movements, especially regarding anti – racist action, my work with small-scale and ancestral miners, my work with victims of gender violence and victims of the armed conflict, I knew I wanted something focus on social justice and peace.

How Did You Find Information About Fulbright Colombia? Did You Take Any Standardized Tests? How Did You Prepare for Them?

Regarding where and how I was going to get my master’s, I knew from before that I wanted to apply to Fulbright because some of my friends applied and won that scholarship. Back there, Fulbright Colombia had a special scholarship for Afro-Colombian leaders, and since I was part of the antiracist movement, I felt a call to apply to this scholarship. Fulbright Colombia normally opens at the beginning of the year, so I checked the web page on February 20 just to confirm if it was open, and it turned out that it opened that same day. I took that as a sign of destiny and spent the 3 following months preparing for my application. The scholarship normally remains open for about 4 months.

Fulbright Colombia Scholarship Details

This is how Fulbright Colombia works for a master's degree:

1. You have to complete a 20-page application. You need to have an English test certifying B2 to be able to complete the application, and you have to have a sense of the master's you want to pursue.

2. To complete the 20-page application, you also need to have a statement of purpose, a research summary on what you would want to do research about, and three letters of recommendation.

3. For Afro-Colombian people, you need a certificate that you belong to an ethnic group.

4. If you win the scholarship, you start a process of placement with Fulbright. They will help you choose 5 universities that have the type of master's degree that you indicated in your application. They will cover the fees of application, your stipend, and will negotiate with the university so you either have free tuition or you have an assistantship that allows you to cover your tuition. They do not cover tuition.
Of course, there are plenty of more details, and they change according to the countries' Fulbright commission, so people interested in this scholarship have to look up the details for their own countries.

How Did You Prepare to Apply for the Fulbright?

In the 3 months that it took me to build my application, I started a deep process of thinking and doing research about what I wanted to study. I concluded that I wanted to study conflict resolution to work in social justice environments with a focus on problem-solving. After looking at at least 15 different master’s degrees, applying to 6 universities, and getting admitted to 5, I decided to go for a master’s degree in Global Affairs with a concentration in International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. More than I would’ve dreamt.

How Does the University of Notre Dame Support International Students?

This program has a full tuition scholarship when you apply to the International Peace Studies concentration. Fulbright didn’t have to negotiate my tuition because I was already granted the scholarship when admitted to the program, and Fulbright would pay my stipend. Those were the best two years of my life. For six months, you are required to do an internship outside of the university. I did it in Chicago, and of course, the program covers the expenses of moving and living there for those 6 months.

When I graduated, I came back to my hometown as it is required by the J1 visa. If you are on a program that grants a J1 visa, you have to go back to your home country for at least 2 years. I was happy to since I wanted to contribute to my country with everything I learned. I started working at the Ethnic Affairs Office of the Mayor’s Office in Medellín. I strengthened the protocol against racism in the city, and, with a team of 4 Afro-descendant women, we built the campaign against racism in the city. I am now in a new role in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Colombia, teaching Global Politics to ethnic groups, so they have the knowledge to become diplomats one day.