I’m nominated as a principal candidate for a 2021 Fulbright Graduate Student Program Award! The monetary amount of a Fulbright Graduate Student Award may be up to $40,000 for the first year of my Ph.D. program in the U.S. and I’m eligible for a maximum of two years of financial support through Fulbright.

It is a very glorious moment for me, and possible because of the support of my P.I., Wani, Dr. Seong-Gi Kim, and Dr. Won-Mok Shim. Wani encouraged me to apply for the Fulbright funding because he received the Fulbright Award for his Ph.D. I needed GRE scores to apply for the Fulbright, and for this I had prepared GRE, TOEFL and scholarship applications from April. I am very happy that the result of the scholarship I have been waiting for 5 months turns out to be a happy ending eventually. It would have been impossible without Wani’s complete support. Although the conference(I missed SANS 😢) and various events were canceled due to the COVID-19, I have invested more time in preparing applications for scholarships and doctoral programs during 2020.

By the way, Wani tweeted to advertise my application for a Ph.D. Thanks to his tweets, I found that potential advisors I was thinking of liked his tweets and received some nice direct messages from them. Of course, it is like a dream. Also, Wani leaved a piece of heartwarming news on Cocoan lab website. I’d like to leave the cool tweets and news here. This is an exact example of how a good advisor is super important to an academic and personal life.

Now, it’s time to search for potential labs and advisors in the U.S.!