Start of the great adventure

Hello everyone!

I’m Pauline, and I decided to start a blog. You’re probably asking yourself: why would she do that? Well, let me explain. In October 2011 I postulated for a UWC. UWC, which is the abbreviation for United World Colleges, is an international association that was founded after the Second World War to show that living together with other cultures is not impossible. Two important people who helped with the foundation are Nelson Mandela and Queen Noor of Jordan. UWC has 13 colleges spread over the whole world (UK, Singapore, Canada, Swaziland, USA, Italy, Venezuela, Hong Kong, Norway, India, Bosnia Herzegovina, Costa Rica and the Netherlands). In a UWC college, you do the last two years of your secondary school and after those two years, you graduate with an International Baccalaureate diploma. So after this experience, you can go to a university or other good school. I’m selected by the Belgian chapter of UWC to go to the UWC in India, to the MUWCI, what is the abbreviation for Mahindra United World College India. If you want to know more about UWC, you can check the website www.uwc.be or ask me . I would recommend everyone to participate.

Each country has a selection committee to send students to a UWC. The number of selected students depends on the number of scholarships they can give. So the more sponsors, the more students have the opportunity to go to a UWC college. Belgium sends 8 students to a UWC college this year.  To be selected I had to do 3 selection rounds. The first they sent me a form with all kind of questions (for example: why do you want to go to a UWC? What have you done that shows your leadership? How would your friends describe you?...). I had to fill in the form and send it back. Also, three of my teachers in secondary school had to send a recommendation letter. During the second round of selections, I had to go to the Belgian selection committee for an interview. The selection committee has UWC alumni and volunteers supporting UWC. They asked me all sort of things about my character and my life. All the selected students in the second round also did group-games and had discussions. The third and final selection round was also an interview, but more formal than the previous. I found the third round the most stressful.  After several months, I was selected as one of the 8 finalists.

Now, it’s May and this weekend I will be celebrating my 16th birthday in Belgium, and my next two anniversaries I'll be celebrating in India. I’m sure I’m going to miss everyone, but I'm also sure that it will be an experience that I will never forget! I’m not staying there two full years. I have one month holydays with Christmas and three months in summer.

I really think that everyone who is interested in UWC should try to go! This was my first message and the next will follow soon! I will keep you all informed and I hope I can make you enthusiastic about UWC.

Kisses, Pauline