The Final Blog part 1 - How I Made it to New York
I know it’s back!
Applying for Mountbatten
When I decided upon trying out for the Mountbatten programme I asked myself one single question and that was if I don’t do this will I regret it. You see, my life wasn’t bad before but it had become stagnant after finishing university. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life. I had a good family, a good group of friends and relatively good prospects for work but my life felt almost worthless because in my opinion I had no life experiences and the worst thing of all is I had never pushed myself as I was living and working within my comfort zone. So that question I asked myself again was if I don’t do this will I regret it and the answer was a wholehearted yes. It almost felt like fate as I let the original deadline for the March intake of the Mountbatten programme slip for a number of personal reasons at the time. The fate part came to me when I was looking around and everything I saw said New York on it. From advertising, to films, to music which is relatively normal but then I had a dream that cried out Mountbatten so I decided to check the website. The deadline had been extended by 3 weeks and this was the end of the second week! That is when I asked myself that fateful question that would eventually change my life. From that moment I got all the forms completed and all my references from previous employers and my lecturer at university then things would change forever.
Accepted on the Mountbatten Programme
From that moment, for the first time since I left university I had direction and something to work for. I got offered an interview with Mountbatten about a week after applying and had the actual interview three weeks later. At the interview I was told about the programme itself by the Mountbatten staff, had an interview about what I was looking for and then the most important was my first taste of meeting future Mountbatten’s and I liked it. Meeting like minded people who were willing to pack up their lives for a year in New York. The interview went well and I was accepted on the programme the next day. The excitement really started to apply to me and I was firmly focused on making it to New York but I had to wait. Once you get accepted onto the programme there is a long wait before Mountbatten send out our profiles to prospective companies to look over and decided who they wish to interview.
The Interview With JP Morgan Chase!
It was a long wait and plenty happened in that time including the passing of my grandmother which came about two months before I would be due to fly out. It was not a great situation to be in but I always knew my grandmother was firmly behind me in making it to New York and she gave me strength when I needed it. That strength came just over a month later when I was called up by Mountbatten telling me I had a telephone interview with JP Morgan and I had two days to prepare. Those two days I put everything into it writing down every question that I believed could be asked and finding out as much as I could about the bank. So when the call did come I felt confident that I could get the role I just needed to prove it. The interview went very well and at the end of it, the interviewer said good interview. That set my mood for an agonising 24 hour wait. I couldn’t just assume I got the role because I didn’t want to be left disappointed. Almost 24 hours passed and I got the call from Mountbatten. I answered the phone and they asked me how the interview went, at which point I thought maybe they would have come out and told me straight away you’ve got the job. I said I thought it went well then they said you’ve got the job! It was one of the best moments of my life. For the first time I was able to tell people I was off to New York as before that it was always I might be going to New York. It was the most unbelievable feeling and I still never really believed I was going until I was boarding the plane for my new life.
Getting the Visa
Before leaving for my new life there was one last thing to do and that was to get my visa from the US embassy. I was assigned by Mountbatten a day to go and some of us are sent there on a certain date in groups with other people on Mountbatten. This was the second time I got to meet Mountbatten’s and the first time I knew what people I would be experiencing the next year with. It was great getting the visa accepted and then hanging out with future friends. I knew I had made the right decision as we all spoke with genuine excitement for what was ahead of us. It was such a great feeling going into the embassy and getting the visa as this is what I had worked for. My new life would soon begin all I had left to do now was pack!
The Flight
The flight was a day I will forever remember. BA flight 185 was the special flight and some of us had named the plane the “party plane”. Before boarding the flight I said goodbye to my family, I looked pretty pale as I was worried about my new life. I was stressed but it was a good form of stress. I met some other Mountbatten’s along the way in the airport. I knew who the other people on the programme were as they were the ones that looked a similar age with a similar look of fear yet glee on their faces. The flight eventually took off and once we were in the air a lot of us started talking to each other by the toilets and this drew some anger from the cabin crew. We were all so enthusiastic about our new lives we forgot we were on a flight. Instead of telling us to sit down I remember seeing one of the cabin crew going on the internal phone and calling the captain to put the seatbelt signs on. He duly obliged and said there is turbulence ahead (lies) but we all sat down anyway! The first sight of New York from the plane was incredible. There it was the place I was about to live my new life in. This was the most amazing feeling ever I have arrived in New York!
