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Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for sharing. Yeah the program was called Freedom Support Act. And you probably had a J-1 visa. That was a great program and I wish there were more of those kind of programs that would bring in kids from other regions of the world.

It is unfortunate about the 2 year requirement for your particular case. Since it was a US govt. sponsored program they paid for your stay, travel and allowance while here. It was not just a program to benefit you personally and to eventually help you integrate into the American society, but rather it was to create future leaders in your country that would support and follow "Western" ideals, and to have you spread your knowledge about the American culture in your own country. As they see it, you have failed that task since you came right back for college.

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Overall I agree, it was a positive program, although with its own quirks and downsides. That said, my "issues" with it are:

- That "task" was never clearly spelled out to mostly immature, 16 year old minors. The attached strings were slowly revealed much later into the deal. I don't want to call it a "bait-and-switch", but it does have many attributes of it.

- There's no way to repay the State Dept for the expenses if you don't want to "do the 2 years".

- As I already mentioned earlier, communications mechanisms were revolutionized since then with the advance of Internet. Most communication and spread of informal knowledge now occurs online, even in my home country. Most ideological "debates" over Western ideals, etc., happen online.

- I wonder what the failure rate was for the program. Most people I know either came back to the US immediately, or eventually. I believe the program is shut down now. Unfortunately, a failed program to a government official is just that -- oh well, time to move on. To a participant, it's a life-altering experience, for better or worse.

Very good points. Yeah at no point in the process did they make that explicit, and that is unfortunate.

And completely agree, someone should have the option to basically repay all the expenses associated with the 2 years and get a waiver in return. Heck, you have probably already repaid it many times over just by paying taxes and producing value in this country.

Looking back at my experience I did actually do some of the sharing. I was only 15 at the time and so I had 2 more years of high-school before heading back to US for the University (also a full ride scholarship). There were a number of times when teachers from my high-school back home invited me in for a round table discussion so I could share some of the teaching practices from American high-school. For example I told them about how frequent quizzes and tests are used to make grading more objective and it keeps tracks of students' progress. Or how group and research projects are used. At least in that one high-school some teachers chose to implement that. I encouraged my extended family members to study English (2 of my younger cousins followed in my footsteps). Also remember tutoring some classmates in English and telling them about American culture informally. I would like to think I made some contribution at least.

Yeah you made a good point about how Internet sort of made this obsolete. I agree 90%, the other 10% are reserved for the case when actually meeting someone who have been abroad and has acquired some of the culture and ideas is still different than reading it from a magazine or seeing it online.

Ha, I should have realized you were an insider. :) Your timing was much luckier, since you had those 2 years built-in, although I'm not sure whether you got to skip a grade when you came back, or had to "downgrade" and sit those two years with lowerclassmen, while your classmates remained a grade ahead. That would have sucked.

Anyway, the fact that you also went back to the US after graduating validates my last point -- yet another "future leader" failed the "task". ;)

> or had to "downgrade" and sit those two years with lowerclassmen

Good guess! Yap had to to that. But it was a fun time. I already knew all the material and didn't really have to work. Had more time to hack on my computer which is what I really wanted to do.

> yet another "future leader" failed the "task". ;)

True. Not much of a future leader more of a introverted nerd who likes to code. It worked out great for me though.

Hello,

Nice meeting you here. I also came to the US as a Freedom Support Act exchange student in high school. I never went back to my home country, got accepted to a University, graduated and was out of status for a while. I married a US citizen and now I am dealing with a 2-year requirement. I applied for a waiver based on "no objection" from the home government. I received a favorable recommendation, but the exchange program wrote a letter to the Waiver Review Division stating that I violated the program and therefore go home. I can reapply basing my case on hardship or political asylum.. but my chances of winning are very slim. You mentioned in one of your posts about repaying the sponsor the amount that was spent? Could you please elaborate? I am in dire need of advice. Please e-mail me at madina_a@hotmail.com

Sincerely, M

Did you just create this account to make that post?

Also did you read the whole thread? Nobody mentioned that you can _actually_ pay back for the 2 years and actually get a waiver for it. It was a hypothetical ("what if" type scenario) that the original poster suggested in response to my claim that US govt. spent the money on these "future leaders" not to help these kids easily become American Citizens, but to share and spread American culture, ideas and ideals in their home country. So hypothetically since you didn't fulfill that goal (the 2 year stay is a proxy for it) _in theory_ you can think of them letting you pay back all the expenses they incurred having you in this country.

You can try another country like the original poster did. Canada is a great country and probably better than your home country at the moment.

> ... applied for a waiver based on "no objection" from the home government.

Yeah not sure I see how that would work. I can imagine any post Soviet block country having a "student exchange program monitoring and tracking system". So who wrote that "favorable recommendation"? Be honest. Was it someone in your family and then you paid someone to sign. I am saying it because that is how things run in my home country and that is why other (let's say "Western" governments) don't really trust letters, transcripts or recommendations from any such places.

Please no need to be so rude. Thank you.

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