Around November 2018 was when I decided to study in France. The experience I gained during a tumultuous experience I can't share as of now, helped me get clear on how and what to do to go about it.

8 Months Later, I was studying in France. Here was what happened!

- A THREAD!

2) I had just weathered a difficult storm on a program (in collaboration with the French Embassy). The fact that what we were expecting didn't materialize on time frustrated me. I waited over 1 year and nothing was happening. Meanwhile, I had stopped looking for opportunities.

3) I felt too confident in the program but it didn't happen. I felt I had wasted my time. But one day, I just thought.. "What if I channel this vexation to this France that's just making me vexed?". I have been applying to different places in the world (US ranked 1st).

4) So that November, I wrote down some schools that our paths crossed. Since I had firsthand information about their application rounds, I scribbled them down in my Jotter. I then set reminder 5 months earlier. In fact, I checked every day.

Receipt people. Here is the proof.

5) I tried to follow up on the previous program I was on but the supervisor I got at the time told me that if I don't resume in January 2019, she wouldn't be able to continue because she would have retired. Sad news! I lost the chance to work with her! So I knew its just on ME.

6) When the application rounds of the schools opened, I checked out for projects and potential supervisors. I researched the supervisors to see the kind of work he or she is into before deciding to approach.

Aside this, I sat down to add pleeentttyyy schools to my list.

7) After all, I'm not paying application fees. This was after I've spent over a million naira on many opportunities that well... I will say some materialized and some didn't. But in all, they formed part of my learning curve, plus I still hold good rapport with some PIs.

8) After a while, I reached out to my current supervisor because I loved the project and the prospects of the skills I will be acquiring was exciting. Other people returned to me with responses that left me with mixed-feelings, my supervisor inclusive.

9) Since I was used to these sort of responses, I still held my chin up. My supervisor then asked if I could get funding from my home country. In my mind, I was like:

"Home country bawo.. Even home country needs scholarship as we dey talk like this" (This was a joke!)

10) Basically, I had to tell him it would be difficult given the timeline plus, I didn't even know where to start. He then said, well, he is just skeptical because my first and second degree wasn't in the field I was applying to. It's true but I decided to compete anyways.

11) I studied Botany (First and Second degree) and now applying for a Geoscience program. I understood his worries but I purposed in my heart to give it all it takes. The project required skills I didn't have at the time plus I lacked the foundational knowledge.

12) So, I had to read all the publications and textbook chapters he sent me. Some I understood, others, I left their interpretation to the gods. I didn't understand shingbain especially the machine learning part. I mean.. Botany to machine learning. I never code my name sef

13) Then the first challenge was - becoming the proposed candidate of the supervisor. Many will apply for the same project as you but the PI has to choose one person to join in the competition.

You and the PI then enters a "PI/Student" ranking competition to determine fit.

14) In the end, only projects by PIs who seems to be a good fit with the Student gets funding. So, even a PI/Student pair can be disqualified at this point. So choosing you is one part of the hurdle. The other is the project being ranked well and the PI/Student pair being great.

15) I went through about 4 rounds of interviews with my supervisors before I ended up being the chosen candidate. I had to buy spectranet and started subscribing 10k per month for a couple of months. It was just for interviews as I didn't trust mobile networks.

16) After I ended up as his select candidate, I went through about 4 interviews/presentations to prepare for my interview with the doctoral school and Directors of research from my university, Lab, and France generally.

17) About 2-3 weeks later, I received the news that I have won the University President Scholarship. Only ONE is awarded to the School of Environmental Sciences. The joy was crazy and it's been an awesome experience so far.

18) Two weeks after I arrived in France, I received a mail saying I have been awarded another scholarship in Australia. My Sweet and Lovely supervisor then asked me what I was going to do. I said I love it here and I'm going to decline. The joy of writing rejection letter

19) After I landed my Scholarship in 2019, I decided I was going to share opportunities with people close to me and in my Facebook community. For this, I created a PDF that contained more than 1,000 advertised PhD projects during the application rounds of last year.

20) I don't know how many people explored the opportunities but someone close to me made the same decision I did in 2018. In January, she decided to explore and commit to applying the strategies I shared and taught her and others in the community.

21) By October 2019, after very rigorous series of interviews which was similar to mine, she won a fully-funded scholarship with her university. She is into medical research and so you can imagine the grit and dogedness she had to keep up till the end. She is Nigerian.

22) When people like @olumuyiwaayo, @AaronAkpuPhilip, @Oludeewon, @bryt_alozy, @Okpala_IU, and myself share our experiences, don't take them for granted. Let them motivate you. My major motivation during my journey was from a friend who is currently doing his PhD in Canada.

23) This year again, once the application rounds are open, I will keep you informed about all the project opportunities. They cut across almost all disciplines and not just STEM alone. So, follow this space to be notified or even turn on notification for my posts.

24) This year, it will be great to have more people join in the train and so we can form our own little community here. Most of my trainings on the process will be in my Facebook Community and my YouTube channel. I will try to bring them here too in writing. Stay tuned!

25) To not miss out, follow me on here, join my Facebook Community here: http://bit.ly/3cvfHcp , and subscribe to my YouTube channel after watching these resources:

How to contact supervisors: http://bit.ly/contactsupervisors

And

Find supervisor with google:

http://bit.ly/usegoogletofindsupervisors