Schooling Abroad: How I Secured a Fully-Funded Scholarship Abroad (Plus Monthly Stipend)

During Pay4Mer’s Community event on Saturday, Nsongurua Willie, a beneficiary of the TotalEnergies scholarship (also known as NNPC/Total Fully funded Scholarship), shared her journey applying for scholarships as a Nigerian and how she secured that of TotalEnergies. Read the chat below.

Can you give a brief introduction of yourself?

I am Nsongurua Willie, from Akwa Ibom State, and a lover of God. I studied Industrial Chemistry for my BSc at UNIBEN and currently undergoing my Master's studies in Sustainable Industrial Engineering at Grenoble INP in France. Actually, I developed an interest in sustainability, hence the change of course.

Lovely. Sustainability is the future…

Yeah.

How are you funding your master's study?

Good question. I am actually on a fully funded scholarship, thanks to TotalEnergies. In Nigeria, the scholarship is called NNPC/Total Fully funded Scholarship. So that’s the one I am benefiting from. And they cover my VISA fees, including renewal, flight expenses, tuition fees, monthly stipends, etc.

Oh wow...I didn't even realize it covered this much.

Yeah, it does…laughs.

That literally means you're a baller while studying?

I cannot suffer in this life…hahaha

How did you come across the scholarship?

I saw the advertisement on LinkedIn, but I also did see it on other platforms. So I directly applied for it, and it was pretty straightforward cause I had even forgotten about it after applying. I was going through this phase where I was applying to as many applications as I could, so far, no money was involved.

Oh, you were applying for other scholarships as well?

Yeah. You know, we can't just put all our eggs in one basket.

Does applying for so many scholarships affect the chances of getting any of the scholarships?

I don't think it particularly does. But I always advise we keep our options open, so far as it aligns with what we are looking for. In the beginning, I was all about applying for scholarships in the UK, as those were the ones I knew at first. Then, I later found the ones in US and Canada, but most required some form of exam like IELT or GRE or cold emailing. I knew I didn’t have money to spend or enough strength in mind to start cold emailing, but I had other things.

Or you can just keep applying until one gets accepted…

Apply to as many as you can. Maybe you can have top priorities just to give them your best shot.

I noticed you mentioned "as long as no money was involved.’’ Are you saying you didn't pay for any scholarship application out of the many you applied for?

No, I never did pay any fees for any scholarship.

What then was required for the NNPC/Total Scholarship you won?

NYSC discharge certificate, BSc result (my CGPA), school certificate (or Statement of result), WAEC result. I think I had to select the course of choice. Overall, the application wasn't strenuous cause I forgot I applied. Although, I didn't think I would be considered.

Oh really?

Yeah, I felt since it's an oil company, they would consider engineering students a top priority before looking at someone from "physical sciences" like me.

Were there any clauses like having a certain CGPA before applying, having admission before applying, or any other clause?

No, you were not required to have had an admission from the school before applying. Honestly, I didn't even complete my application to the school until when I was invited for an interview. I even remembered the school when I received an invitation for the assessment test. It was all a miracle.

What interview? Scholarship interview?

Yeah. The application can be summarised in three stages. 1) Apply online 2) Assessment test online 3) Interview

Would you be able to share a summary of the questions you encountered during the assessment test and interview?

So the assessment is called a psychometric assessment test. And it's basically in three parts, the reading part, to test your understanding of the passage, and then the mathematical aspect of it that you could be given a graph or some equations and asked to explain or answer some questions. And all these were timed.

The last part is a vocational kind of test where you are given shapes to see whether they match out, and so on. But it's called psychometric assessment. So there's like a practice for it. And when I was told about the assessment, I was given a link where I could prepare for the assessment. it took place online on Zoom.

Okay…

And then there's someone there monitoring to see if there's anything in the background. So everything was online, and I did it from my house. And it took like 24 minutes or 20 minutes for the three assessment sections. After the assessment, it took three days before I received an interview invitation.

It was very fast. And then, the hosts were just trying to confirm which course I had chosen for my scholarship. I was asked to submit a motivational letter before the interview. So let's say I took the exams, like on Wednesday. On Friday, I received an invitation for an interview.

And then, for my interview, I was asked to introduce myself. In my introduction, I kind of just gave a summary of who I was. And then, from the question, I said, I would like to inspire young people around me. And they asked me who inspires me.

I mentioned Okonjo Iwela and other women and some directors of banks and so on. And they said, Why is it that it’s only successful people kind of inspirations? As God had it, I said, It's because they're visible. I think it's a good answer because one was shaking his head.

Guess he was impressed. Can you briefly talk about the interview panel?

About the panel, it was made up of eight people. So I was just like the only person being interviewed. I had people on the panel from different places like the company, Total Company in Nigeria, and people from Total Energies in France because it's a French company. And then we had people from campus France, and people in the embassy.

Go on, please…

So we had eight persons coming from different areas, and they asked me questions. I told them I had to kind of use a theme for my interview, like a theme of interests on why I need the scholarship. I was talking about waste management and my interest in sustainability. One was like, oh, you’re interested in converting waste to energy and waste to useful stuff? I told him I’ve also researched things people have done concerning waste because it will give me the skills necessary to achieve my career goals. And even in Nigeria, I tried to mention some waste issues in Nigeria.

Was that all the questions?

No. Another person asked me, where do you see yourself in five years? And I just told her that in five years, I see myself being able to have a network of people that are producing waste, people that are making waste into good materials, and people that can be consumers of this final material that we get as a result of recycling our waste product. I see myself creating this network of communication.

Brilliant answer I must say…

That's what I told her. I think those were just the questions, but asides from that, every other thing was calm. It didn’t take long. And I think after I finished, I was beating myself up because I felt like I did not really give everything I had studied. After all, I was literally studying for it. I was like, I'm not going to jump with this. And that was how it was.

Is there a link or a certain period you saw the scholarship opening?

It is not like a constant thing. It was just for that period.

Was it strictly for sciences, or did other students say MBA get the scholarship too?

It was for sciences and other social science courses. but it was majorly sciences.

Was the scholarship strictly for studies in France? Or can you apply for schools, say the US, and still get it?

Only in France. But apart from Total, other bodies sponsor students to study in France for courses taught in English. Like the Eiffel Tower of excellence scholarship, Erasmus, etc. There are also opportunities to get fee exemptions, especially as their school fees aren't on the high side compared to the UK, Canada, US.

How was the visa process? Was it easy for you?

Yes. It was straightforward, and they responded quickly too. They have a body called Campus France that guides this process.

This post was put together and brought to you by Pay4Me. Pay4Me is a cross-border payment platform that simplifies cross-border payments for international students by converting their local currencies in real time for instant payouts to colleges, universities, and government agencies. For more content like this, join the Pay4Mers Whatsapp community or download the Pay4Me App to stay updated and process your educational fees abroad.