Tag: Grad School

How I Got My Visa Extended

It’s 7:20 in the morning. As I leave the U-Bahn station at Poccistrasse, I see a crowd of other sleepy-eyed foreigners standing outside the Kreisverwaltungsreferat (the KVR). Presumably, everyone on line is here to obtain or extend a visa, but the KVR may offer other services, so I’m not sure. An old man in front of me with hedges for eyebrows stares at a newspaper with his mouth open for who knows how many minutes. He likely won’t be joining me in the student line. A girl about my age is further up, at the very front of the line. She’s leaning inward toward the door slightly, and she’s tracing the items on her checklist with her finger, head positioned nearly below her shoulders. I imagine she’s a runner and that she’ll be my competition for a place in line.

Ten minutes go by. I can hear anxious murmuring ahead of me as the crowd ball starts to shift. Someone somewhere is unlocking a door.

It’s the handicapped door, at the far end of the entrance. An anxious young guy edges past me in order to weave through the crowd toward it. Waiting for the door in front of us to open is for noobs, I guess. A second later, a KVR employee is unlocking our door. The murmuring starts in our section of the crowd, and I feel pressure on my back. The KVR employee slides out of the way of the door, and I learn that everyone is a runner. It’s November 19, 2006 in the US, and the Nintendo Wii just went on sale.

I walk in, dodging runners as they fly by me on their way to whichever line offers the visa they need. I’m on my way to the 2nd floor, but luckily it’s pretty close to the stairwell. Everyone seems to be avoiding that route, so I’m feeling pretty good about the likely length of my line. Nursing the pending nervous breakdown I’d given shelter in my stomach over the weekend, I push open the stairwell doors. I hear sharp breathing as a girl of maybe 26 hurries past me as I inadvertently hold the door open for her. You’re welcome. I enjoy a laugh at the ridiculousness of everyone’s anxiety and continue upward.

About a minute later, I’m in line behind 6 people. This isn’t bad at all–the line ends before the doorway out of the room. I have 4.5 hours to get through this, and maybe 3 waiting areas. Awesome. A crowd of maybe 7 runners sighs its way into line behind me. That’s funny.

Four people make it through the front desk in about as many seconds, after simply handing Desk Lady their application checklist. How on Earth did they do that? There’s no time to ask, though–I’m almost next.

The next guy approaches Desk Lady. His native language is Spanish, but he stutters through some German. Maybe it’s because he’s still learning, or maybe it’s because he’s nervous. I don’t know which it is, but I absolutely relate to both.

“I need to get a Visa, please.”

“Do you have your application?” Desk Lady tells her computer screen.

“Um, no I don’t.”

“Why not?” She still hasn’t looked up from her screen.

“Um. Well, can I go fill it out and bring it back to you?”

“Go fill it out. Next.”

He’s a tough act to follow. “Hi, I would like an extension for my Visa, please.”

“I need to see your documents.”

“Naturally.” I’m trying to be as humble as possible. In my experience, working with Desk Lady and Desk Man is working with an emotionally sensitive computer. Every text string that leaves my mouth or appears on any of my papers must match the string stored in their memory. Unless I annoy them. In that case, they add new text strings to their memory and penalize me for an invalid command.

I produce my Visa application and my checklist.

“Financial support?” She wants evidence that I won’t be a burden on the German welfare system.

“Yep.” I hand her a pay stub of Roxana’s and a note signed by Roxana naming her my source of financial support.

“This is all you have?”

That is the question of nightmares. Every bit of that nervous breakdown I mentioned before was rooted in the possibility of hearing that exact question. Oh, dear God.

“Well, yes. It indicates that my time here is sustainable, no?”

“Who is Roxana?”

“She’s my girlfriend.”

“She needs to come here with you. Notes like this only work when support comes from your parents.”

My argument: “Oh. Really?”

She looks back at her computer screen and types for ten seconds. She looks back to me. After five more seconds, she slides her chair back, hits a button and hands me a waiting room ticket.

Valid command!

I’m number 108, so I find a seat in the waiting room and melt into it. This is as far as I’ve made it since I received my first Visa a year ago. Run free, pending nervous breakdown.

It’s going to be awhile until they call me. One new number appears on the board every 7-10 minutes. I pull out A Feast for Crows and start reading. George R.R. Martin is your best friend in a government waiting room. Cersei’s angry.

1.5 hours go by, and my number finally appears on the board. I’m ecstatic. It’s the moment of truth. Time to meet with Office Lady.

I open her door, and I’m greeted by a smile sitting in front of a view of the courtyard. Office Lady is always nicer than Desk Lady.

“Good morning!” I say, as humbly as ever.

“Good morning!” she replies. “How can I help you?”

“Well, I’m wondering if it would be okay if we speak in English? I can speak German, but my vocabulary on the subject of Visas and the law is really small.”

She smiles, looking a bit unsure. “Yes, I can try.”

“Thank you so much. I’m applying to graduate school, here, and in order to finish the process I need to extend my Visa. Specifically, I’m looking for one called Section 16, paragraph 1-”

“Slow down, slow down. I need to see your documents, first.”

That’s interesting. Desk Lady would have wanted me to spell out the exact nature of my request. Office Lady is ready to decide on her own what they can offer me. I always liked Office Lady. I hand her all of my documents.

“And do you have proof of eligibility for University?”

I’m glad you asked! Is what I want to say. Instead, I say “Yes, I do. I have 4 types, in case you prefer any one of them.”

I show her my grad school application, my original diplomas from UT Austin, my official sealed transcript from UT Austin, and my grad school acceptance letter from last year (the University accepted me, but the specific program to which I applied rejected me). One of them is bound to convince her that I’m eligible for a Master’s degree here.

“I think the diplomas are sufficient,” Office Lady laughs. “Please wait outside for a few minutes while I process these. I’ll come get you when I’m done.”

I wait in the hallway for 40 minutes. I still feel good about Office Lady, though.

Finally, her door opens and she pokes her head through the doorway. “You can come back, now.”

“I was able to extend your visa. Before this extension expires, though, you have to bring proof that you were accepted into your Master’s program back here. Then, we will give you a normal student visa.”

It’s okay, Office Lady. I am more than familiar with the drill. “That’s perfect,” I say as she asks me to sign the document that confirms the details of the extension. It’s in German legalese, but I can make out an effective period of six months, and a line that says failure means leaving Germany.

“Just to make sure: this says that I have six months to bring back proof of enrollment. Right? So, by October?”

“Well, yes. Actually you have until September 30.”

Fantastic. “Thanks so much for your help!”

“It’s no problem. Have a good day.”

Office Lady is great.

The rest is easy. All I have to do is make my way downstairs and pay for this thing. 20 euros and 2.5 hours, and I’m done.

********

It’s noon, and I decide I want to examine my new Visa up close. It’s different than what I received last time–a sticker stuck to a rectangular stub rather than inside my passport. It’s also called a “Reisepass” this time, instead of an “Aufenthaltserlaubnis.” That’s strange.

And then: “Valid until: June 30, 2014.” Holy nuts. Cashier Lady did not just do that.

So, I’m going back to the KVR tomorrow morning to correct this mistake. I love the KVR.

Beware: A Marketer Approacheth

The life of a marketer begins in high school, probably during the future soul stealer’s junior year, when they’re approached by a bearded man in a derby and a trench coat. It’s always that guy. “Psst,” he whispers from shadows, the looks of which suggest that he himself created them. “Listen. You want to make money, right? Major in Business when you go to college.”

Many of us are confused at first, since the leap from “making money” to “majoring in business” seems pretty far to a lowly high school student.

“Seriously, though. Want to be a Doctor? Med schools like Business students. Then, you have the know-how to run your own practice! Want to be a Lawyer? Same thing! And then, of course, there’s doing something that they teach you directly, like accounting or investment banking. Endless opportunities!”

At this point, most of us are sold. The rest will change their major to Business when they realize they hate writing Literary Analysis papers as Liberal Arts Majors.

Fresh off the graduation stage, we move on to Business School, where we assume we’ll major in one of the more popular and altruistic disciplines like Accounting or Finance (Lehmann and Enron, you guys were diamonds in the rough). After all, we want to make money, right? What better way to do that than to spend our career swimming in someone else’s?

But those of us destined for true greatness receive the call at the beginning of our Sophomore year, once we’ve gotten our meaningless courses like Economics and Biology and Calculus out of the way. There’s no point in studying the way the world works if I’m going to be deciding how it works, anyway. Right?

As I was saying: The invitation emanates through our laptop speakers one night, during a routine binge on Malcom Gladwell TED Talks. A disembodied voice, neither completely male nor completely female, beckons right as our “perfect Pepsis” chills set in. “If you want to realize your true potential, report to the Marketing Office tomorrow morning at 6:66.” That’s all the voice says before the Folger’s jingle begins playing through our speakers.

I remember the following day more vividly than any other in my life, and not just because the sun rose an hour later than usual. It was the morning I met the Marketing Program Director–the owner of the disembodied voice. I stepped into their office at precisely 7:06, from the smooth, reflective tile floor of the University hallway to the uneven mortar-bound stone within. My heart tried to pound its way from my chest in my mixture of excitement and anxiety. What did the voice mean by “realize your true potential?” I had to know, but part of me was terrified by the prospect of an answer.

The echoing sound of water dripping into distant pools on the stone floor kept me company as I waited on a steel bench for the Marketing Program Director to see me. I remember bowing my head and closing my eyes to focus on the sound of the water, until I felt a sudden change. My skin chilled, as if to tell me that the office had suddenly become a walk-in freezer. My insides, however, floated in warm bath water. My instincts raised my head and opened my eyes so that I could see the new figure in front of me. The Director wore an ashen cloak, tightened at the waist by a deep red sash. A hood covered the Director’s head, obscuring their entire face in shadow, but for two glowing red eyes.

The Director spoke, bellowing distinctly sulfuric breath from under the hood they wore. “You probably plan on majoring in Finance or Accounting, don’t you?”

My own disposition surprised me. I felt completely at home with the Director, like I were talking about my eating habits with the world’s most accomplished dietitian. “Well, yeah, I think so. They seem to be the routes that open the most doors for a graduate.”

The Director’s subsequent laugh instilled in me a shame I didn’t fully understand. “Really?” The Director asked in disbelief. “You’re looking for a degree with security attached to it?” The cloaked figure spat the word “security” like a seed one finds in a watermelon.

“Everyone who matters is a marketer,” continued the Director. “CEOs are Marketers. Consultants are Marketers. Parents are Marketers. And yes, even Teachers are Marketers. What do these people have in common, Ryan?”

I hesitated.

“They control other people. Yes, Ryan. These people make their living on control–on literal self-empowerment. Don’t you want that?”

I hesitated again, but for a shorter time. “Actually, yes. I think I would really like that.”

“Good.” The warmhearted hiss of the director gripped my very soul that instant. I knew I wanted to be a Marketer. But what next?

The Director, having absorbed the thoughts directly from my head, continued: “Before you begin your Marketing training, you must pass one test.”

“Good,” I eagerly replied. “I’m ready for anything. What do I have to do?”

The challenge slithered out from under the hood: “Leave this building.” Then the Director vanished in a ball of fire, the building burst into flames, and a folder full of three peoples’ private personal data manifested itself in my hands.

To leave the building, I had to examine the personal data in my folder and make use of the resulting insight. Specifically, I used fear to convince a member of the Football team to ram his way through a burning door so that I could pass through unscathed (“Your father wouldn’t be happy to learn that he won the war so that his son could cower in front of burning doors, would he?”). Then, I assumed an air of authority in order to recruit two beautiful yet insecure cheerleaders to my cause (“fire’s actually quite predictable when you come from a family of Fire Marshals”). My third and final task involved the maintenance manager. He had a hose attached to a water fixture, but the system’s pressure had plummeted when a pipe ruptured in the inferno. It would just barely stall the flame’s spread, nothing more. Working with the cheerleaders, I appealed to the maintenance manager’s sense of sexuality ([details omitted]), after which he happily stayed behind with the faulty hose to stall the blaze and allow for my narrow escape.

Having survived the test, I would begin my training in the morning.

Our first Marketing course was MKT 302: Principles of Contemporary Manipulation. I remember staring awestruck at its nameless textbook, bound in Furby skin and treated with the blood of Apple Fanboys. I can feel that book in my hands every time I catch the scent of sulfur.

At the end of my first year came my first sales presentation, wherein I had to convince a group of girl scouts to pay me to take their cookies from them. The topic in class at the time was “product positioning,” so my task was to convince the scouts that my possession of the cookies was a valuable source of word-of-mouth promotion to the rest of their market. Therefore, they should pay me for the service. After some quick reach/frequency estimates, we agreed on a CPM that, well, let’s just say that student debt is not a problem, now.

My second year brought with it another fond memory: our first corporate guest speaker. He was YoYo’s Product Manager, and he showed up in my “Fads: The Science of Commercial Compulsion” class. He explained, quite simply, that creating a fad only requires that a marketer understand how gullible humanity is, and that they have access to a data warehouse full of their market’s personal information. Then, you just make it look like cool people are already using your product. I reminisce now on his final words to us. Pulling the side of his cape in to cover his mouth, he whispered “Consumption is as stupid does.” And then he vanished in a puff of smoke.

And the rest is history. Upon graduation, world control would finally be within my grasp. More than anything else in life, I thank my Marketing education for the opportunity.