Alexander the Great

In the next few posts I am going to write about my great trip to Minneapolis (MN, USA). Just to introduce this "trip" a bit:

In late February C.S.Lewis announced to all sophomores and juniors that there is a possibility of getting a scholarship at Minnehaha Academy (shortcut: MA), a private Christian school in Minneapolis (MN, USA). I was kind of obsessed with getting there. Finally, I was offered to study there. MA has a partnership with C.S.Lewis and every year gives opportunity to a few students from Slovakia to study there and experience different culture.

With a huge help from my friends Jano Horvath, Hanka Butorova and my father I managed to get this scholarship. I had to write a letter of motivation in which I was supposed to express my interests in studying at MA. If you are interested, you can read it here:

Letter of motivation

Studying abroad at a prestigious school was always my crucial target during high school and I consider Minnehaha Academy an appropriate candidate to fulfill this aim.

First of all, let me introduce myself. My name is Andrej Hano. I have lived in Bratislava all my life. I maintain Christian values similar to those which MA asserts. I believe education broadens my horizons and for that reason I take advantage of every opportunity I get, to educate and train myself in different fields of curricular and extracurricular studies. I currently participate in educative, sport and volunteering activities.

My key educative activity is the debate club. It elaborates my argumentation and presentation skills, lowers stage fright, teaches me how to work under pressure and supports creative thinking. My team has even advanced to the National round of debating competition. Apart from educative activities I also participate in a lot of sports. I am an enthusiastic runner, cyclist and ping-pong player and I want to continue with sports on MA. My extracurricular activities also consist of active volunteering. I participate on a great Roma-adaptation project whose aim is to support talented Roma children via activities which develop their characters and skills. At the same time I tutor a child from socially disadvantaged and broken family. I also lead an airplane craft club where I teach pupils the art of modeling wooden airplanes.

 I believe Minnehaha Academy will offer me a high quality education therefore I am determined to study there.  I will also acquaint myself with the ability of being on my own abroad. Sooner or later I will have to become self-sufficient and this is a great challenge since I have never been abroad for a longer period. Beside from that, I want to improve my skills in colloquial English.

In addition, I am looking forward to getting to know American Culture that will certainly enrich my knowledge. Living in the U.S. for a period of 6 months will reveal another point of view on lifestyle and culture; therefore I can distinguish cultural differences between Slovakia and the U.S.

So how will I be able to use gained skills end experiences from MA in Bilgym and in my life? I expect this scholarship will help me to improve in activities I participate in. For example I will see how national and ethnical problems are solved in U.S. and I will try to get inspiration for the Roma-adaptation project I take part in.

Furthermore, I plan to attend the debate club in MA in order to learn new debating techniques, be inspired by debaters and get to know the British debating system that is practiced there. With my new gained skills I will be able to move my Bilgym team forward. I also intend to focus on other afterschool activities at MA as I know afterschool activities are more developed in U.S. In MA I would like to attend the diversity club and the Amnesty International club to gain inspiration so I can potentially establish any of them in Bilgym.

            After graduating high school I want to study abroad at some prestigious university, preferably in the U.S. or the U.K. I take this scholarship at MA as training for staying at a foreign university. My preference for future employment is working in diplomatic services or in international institution dealing with bilateral affairs. Living in a country with a different culture for a specific period will make me be more capable of understanding and solving problems in diplomatic matters.

Sincerely,

Andrej Hano

So this is how I got to America. Chapter 1 finished :-) I will tell you more details about my way here in next few posts.