Ol`gita Major: International Economic Relations Status: Workygirl I am fond of chocolates, flowers, friends, loud music, watching movies, taking pictures and traveling!!!

Personal Grant
Olya Bezvushko

If you will convey certain thorough preparation and study, you can get a grant for an personal or independent study abroad. Use our tips to learn how to do this:

1. The topic of study. The first and most important part is to find an activity you are passionate about. While choosing one, try not to limit yourself to the subjects that are of your major area of study. Consider things that are really interesting for you, something like gender inequalities, the politics of your host country or even traditional dances and food. There is only one way to convince somebody to give you money – be passionate and devoted to the topic. 

2. How to do this. After you have gained some ideas, start to search. Talk to anybody at your college, who can give some advices – administrators, professors, counselors. Remember that human contact is better than plain Internet search, because people can give you useful advises even without having the right answer. Approach the faculty of the discipline, your project is most related with.   

3. Make contacts. You are more likely to succeed when you can get the assistant of many other people in your host country, so the more contacts you can make ahead of time the more project credits you can get in future. So, try to establish contact with study abroad advisors, professors and administrators. Such contacts will not only make your project better known but also make your future study much easier.

4. Make an offer. Explore all possible information about the grant which you want to get before writing an effective proposal. What kinds of projects have received funding in the past? Why haven’t other projects received anything? What are the main criteria for judging a proposal? The best thing to do and unfortunately the most uncommon is to speak to the members of the committee. You can ask about their opinion on your project, they can advise you some resources and offer new ideas. 

5. Stay realistic. You’d better find the flaws in your project by yourself. Put critical questions to yourself and make sure you can answer them. You have to do this, especially if you are supposed to go through an interview.

6. Be representative. Even if your first grant proposal doesn’t work out, continue to try.