The idea sounded pretty simple in the beginning, but now, with three more weeks until I leave for The States, I have to admit that the last months haven't been so relaxing. The process that got me here was rough. I don't know if this was the case for every participant in the program, but for me things did not went smooth.
If you intend to enter the Work and Travel program, you should think very carefull ahead if you really want to do it, consider every aspect of it, ask for advice from previous participants and make sure it's not a rushed decision. I know that the idea of spending a summer in The United States sounds like a dream for most of us, but there's more to this process that meets the eye.
From the start, I had problems with the paperwork, the bank transfers, and I've always been forced to make a lot of trips to my home town to solve certain aspects.
All of the above would have been acceptable, but when the moment to choose our jobs for the summer arrived, the things tended to go from bad to worse. I decided to go through this experience with a friend of mine, that was the main reason behind my decision to start the program and we were really excited to take this trip together. We applied for jobs at the Montage Deer Valley Hotel in Utah and we were pretty confident we would get it. We traveled from Timisoara to Bucharest for the job interview that lasted 3 minutes only to find out, one week later, that I got the job and my friend was rejected. We were disapointed, didn't know what to do, we even considered the idea of leaving the program and lose the 1200$ that we spend so far. I was not thrilled by the idea of spending the summer with strangers and not with my best friend as I hoped for months.
We thought about the whole situation for a few days and decided to continue our journey separately, to work for three months in different states and spend the last month of our program traveling together. After that, I was safe at my new job, but my friend was accepted and rejected afterwards from another 2 jobs.
We thought about the whole situation for a few days and decided to continue our journey separately, to work for three months in different states and spend the last month of our program traveling together. After that, I was safe at my new job, but my friend was accepted and rejected afterwards from another 2 jobs.
Getting the visa was also a complex and demanding process. Besides all the paperwork that had to be done, the day I got to the United States Embassy was not pretty. It was raining, it was cold, 300 students were in front of me and we all stayed and wait for our turn to enter the Embassy for three freezing hours.
I still have three weeks until I leave for a summer in Utah and I hope that my problems have stopped and everything will be ok but I sincerely doubt that, so if you choose to follow my path make sure you have the nerves, the patience, the money and time to deal with all the aspects of this program,
Leaving the bad part aside, I can only hope that it was all worth it and my summer in The States will make me forget and even regret that I had moments along the way when I wanted to give up.
