Sebastian’s Fletcher visa story
Here’s a fun admissions-season story. One of our current MALD students told Kristen about his visa application process. She liked the story enough that we asked him to write it up. Here, then, is the tale of Sebastián‘s road to Fletcher and the unexpected result of his visa interview.
I first heard about Fletcher when I was doing an internship at the Colombian Ministry of Defense in 2011. Back then, Dean Stavridis was Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, and the Minister of Defense of Colombia was going to meet him on official business. I was asked to do a profile on then-Admiral Stavridis for the Minister, and while I was researching him I learned about his Fletcher education, and the School peaked my interest.
About a year later (2012), as I was in the process of moving to Washington, DC for an internship with the Colombian Embassy, I met with my brother’s friend who had lived in the city for a few years to hear her friendly advice on DC. As we were talking, she told me that she was not living there anymore but was visiting a few friends in town. She was living in Medford and pursuing her graduate education at Fletcher. I immediately remembered the school where the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO got his MALD and PhD degrees, and began asking her a lot more questions about Fletcher. It was then that I knew that, in a few years, I wanted to come to this School.
Fast forward to early 2016, when I received my acceptance letter to Fletcher. I was very excited and eager to begin this new chapter of my life. A few months later during the middle of the summer, I finished up my job at the OAS in DC and went to Colombia to enjoy some time at home and arrange my student visa. I went to the appointment at the U.S. Embassy and approached the Consular officer in charge. As soon as he saw my paperwork, his face lit up with a smile and he began speaking to me in Spanish saying: “You’re are going to Fletcher! I went to Fletcher!”
He was very happy and excited and told me that I was going to love it. He also talked about some of his Fletcher experiences. This coincidence was amazing and made me feel an immediate sense of belonging to the School. Afterwards, he said that he would throw a going-away party for me before I went back to the U.S., and that he would invite some of the Fletcher alumni in Bogotá.
A few weeks later I was invited to his place, where a bunch of Fletcher alumni from different class years and nationalities were brought together to bid farewell to an unknown guy (me), soon to join this big family. They all spoke about their experiences while at Fletcher, their challenges, and what life after Fletcher has been for them. All of them offered some “Fletcher advice” and then finished by saying how much they loved their time here, and how it really opened doors moving forward. This opportunity gave me a chance to feel all the Fletcher love before I officially arrived, and it proved to be a very good omen of what my time here has become: pure joy and intellectual challenge.
