NERD COMMUNITY AND EDUCATION USA
In today's world, you (unfortunately) won't find superheroes like Batman or Spiderman, but you will, however, find plenty of superheroes without capes and Nerd Community is such a group of people.
Founded by Jannat Ferdous Sigma on the 3rd of November, 2015, Nerd Community is an educational enterprise of around six thousand and five hundred members, aiming to give information, resources, workshops and counselling services to students studying under an international examination board. It's more or less the go-to place for every struggling CIE and Edexcel Students for both O Levels and A Levels. They provide you with past papers—which can be surprisingly difficult to find—mark schemes, and are even available online on their Facebook group for when you've got a problem or a question. They've been running strong for over a year so far.
Recently, on March 20 at the EMK Center, a seminar was hosted by Education USA, a global network and a part of the US Department of State, with more than 400 centres in 170 countries. The goal of this seminar was to offer the most reliable information possible regarding the application procedure into US universities. The seminar was attended by 200 prospective university students brimming with questions and featured guest speakers from Education USA, A.Q.M Mushfiq Hassan, Education USA Outreach Coordinator at The American Center and Sausan Rahmat Ullah, EducationUSA Advisor, with the chief guest being Kelly R. Ryan, Cultural Affairs Officer at The American Center. The seminar was organised by Nerd Community and was also streamed live. The video is currently on their Facebook page.
The seminar was held in two different sessions from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and was very informative, showing us that there are 6,513 Bangladeshi students studying in the US, a 19.4% growth from last year (so if you ever feel like you can't make it, reconsider). It outlined the main steps to applying: researching your options, financing your studies, completing your application, applying for a student visa. They also outlined what makes a good application: when to apply, transcripts/academic records, TOEFL/IELTS scores, SAT I & II/ACT/GRE/GMAT, your personal statement, recommendation letters (2 to 3), ECAs and fees and financial records. There were multiple questions, the topics of which included whether it is okay to take a gap year, opportunities for scholarship programmes and financial aids, the extracurricular activities students should take part in, whether, the minimum/best score for IELTS, SATS, TOEFL, etc., what should be included in an applicant's personal statement, whether you can still get in if you've got average grades, and many more.
All in all, it was two hours well-spent and a very fruitful endeavor by Nerd Community and shows us that there is much hidden potential in our country we can bring out.
Rasheed Khan is a hug monster making good music but terrible puns and jokes where he's probably the only one laughing. Ask him how to pronounce his name at [email protected].
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