What is Work and Travel?

I would like to start by introducing myself. My name is Mehmet Yerlikaya, and I do double major in the Department of Economics, at which I am a second grader, and the Department of Mathematics. In this article, would like to share my experiences about and the knowledge I gained from the "Work and Travel" program, to which I attended in summer 2016. 

To start with the basics such as "What is Work and Travel, and Who Can Attend the Program?"; Work and Travel is a roughly 3-4 month program, which is controlled by the Embassy of the United States, and as a part of which undergraduate and associate degree program students can work at jobs at certain categories in the United States and then travel within the country, and also learn about a new culture and improve their English.

My Work and Travel adventure started in 2015 when I was a preparatory class student in my first year at the university. I started by preparatory education at rate B and I would have qualified to take the department courses if I passed TOEFL following completing rate C courses. Since I did not want to start the department as a disorganized student, I had made my mind up about attending a program such as Work and Travel, and had started doing my research on the matter. That was the first step for me.

You have to apply for the Work and Travel Program through an agency. I had meetings with the Work and Travel agencies located in Ankara, which I had detected as a result of my research, and having made an agreement with the agency that offered the best terms for me, I signed up for the program. The next step was to evaluate the job offers through the agency of my advisor, who had been assigned to be by the agency, and to select a suitable job for myself.  Even though the process was a bit long, I eventually accepted the offer for a "ride operator" job at the amusement park, called "Pleasure Pier", on Galveston Island, Texas. I would also like to mention the services the agency offers a s part of the program. The agency assists you with all such intimidating processes as job selection, visa process, arrangement of accommodation in the United States and arrangement of flight tickets at reasonable prices through the entire course.

I imagine you wonder what that "ride operator" job is about. A ride operator is, in short, the person, who attend to the people, who visit the amusement park, throughout the entire time from their riding the rides and to their leaving the amusement park, and who are in charge of the operation of the rides. Following my acceptance of the offer, I was interviewed through Skype and I was accepted for the job. Once I took the job, all I needed to do was to get a visa for the USA. I obtained my visa for the United States from the US Consulate in Ankara 2 weeks in advance of my date of starting the work, whereupon my adventure in America started. I must note that the entire process was extremely exciting for me. 

Also, I was particularly exciting since I was attending the program just by myself. I stepped on the United States soil a couple of days before June 6, being the my date of starting the day, after a 13 hour flight, which was the longest flight in my life. I was in some 10,000km distance to my home, in another continent, in a country, where people did not speak my mother tongue. The first weeks were hard for me too as they would be for most people. The first week, I attended the orientation related to the job I would to at my workplace. In the mean time, I made friends from different countries. It would be fair to suggest that I spent my first weeks observing around and adapt. Let me briefly mention the challenges I had to overcome within the first week. At first, I had communication issues as most people would do. I attended the program with English skills at intermediate level thanks to the preparatory class education at the university. I can tell by my experience that if you have not stayed in abroad for a long time and if you lack practical speaking experience, you encounter issues with speaking during the first 2-3 weeks. Once you overcome that process, you begin to speak English without even thinking.

As a person, who had never actually worked before except for helping my father with the gardening works; I must admit that it was very hard for me at first to work for hours under that hot sun of Texas. That was the first time when I understood that one must work hard to make it in America.

In order to save for money for the 'Travel' part of the program; I was lucky that I found a table waiting job at a hotel, called "Holiday Inn", which I really enjoyed doing. At that point, I had fallen in step with the American system. I was no longer finding it too challenging to work for hours and cycle the whole day. I was finding the excitement of earning my own money, meeting new people and even sleeping less in order to make time to have fun extremely enjoyable. 

So, the 'Work' part of the program was going fairly busy and also fun. Some of my friends there did not really enjoy working and they were even counting days to start the 'Travel' part. As far as I was concerned, I guess I was lucky both because I was doing fun jobs and because I had a good communication with my co-workers, so I was enjoying the 'Work' part. Since I had worked really hard throughout the 'Work' part (in some weeks I worked for 70-80 hours), I had saved a fair amount of money for the aftermath. So, I can say that those long working hours had actually paid off.

During my working days, I was making plans for the 'Travel' part, being the second part of the program. I and 2 Turkish friends of mine, whom I met at the workplace, decided to travel together. Then, 2 other guys joined us, and the 5 of us started to plan for out trip. We made a joint decision to rent a car and planned a route, which would allow us to go on an interstate trip. It was pretty much like an inter-city coach trip. Since Ümit, the manager of one of my trip-mates at his second job, offered to give his car to us for our trip, we no longer need to rent a car. - I would like to thank this opportunity to say hello to Ümit, who helped us with making our trip more economically affordable - And on September 15, our 2 week trip started. Our route was as follows: New Orleans-Orlando-Miami-New York. To summarize those cities in a few words:

New Orleans: The city of jazz and culture. (The only city, where I felt outside the United States)
Orlando: Universal Studios (City of entertainment)
Miami: The city, with which we are completely familiar due to GTA Vice City, and where we, therefore, almost felt home
New York: The heart of the world, the city where I felt as if I was an ant among all those high-rise concrete buildings.

Our tiring and extremely fun trip ended in New York. I still remember thinking "Maybe I should stay for a couple of days more" on my way to the airport for my flight back home from the house in Brooklyn, where we stayed, in New York, which was the final destination of our trip on September 29. You know the cliché that your life flashes before your eyes like in your time of dying? Almost the same way, my 4-month adventure in America, which was both extremely challenging and extremely fun, just flashed before my eyes while I was waiting for my plane at the airport. To be frank; even though I had thoroughly missed my family, friends and my country, I was also feeling that 3 days were not enough for New York City, so I had a bit of a bittersweet feeling inside on my way back home.

Consequently; for me, Work and Travel was not only an experience of discovering America and learning about a new culture but also an experience of coping with challenges on my own, having the time of my life fun-wise, learning to push my limits, making ever-lasting friends and learning about personal discipline.

I tried to tell you about my Work and Travel adventure and my take-aways from it in this article. As far as the fellow undergraduate students are concerned; given the busy educational schedule implemented at our University, I recommend them to think it over thoroughly before attending to this program. As far as the fellow preparatory class students though; I strongly recommend them to experience it if they can render the conditions suitable for themselves. The world is big enough to see new places and to discover!

News Story Credit: Mehmet Yerlikaya - Department of Economics