 Hi, my name is Berjika and I'm an actress based out of California and a lot of people comment about how can I come to the US and be an actor and I don't really know because I came here when I was really young so I got my friend Shabali today to talk to you guys about how she came here. She's not an actress but she did come from India as an adult so I thought it'd be cool to get her perspective on how she did it and it's not going to apply 100% to actors and how actors can get here but it will be helpful to see somebody who has you know come to this country and studied here and then yeah so you guys can just learn a little bit about how that is done so Shabali if you want to introduce yourself and just say what you do. So hi guys I'm Shabali and I'm working as an engineer and also a YouTuber. Yeah and she has a lot of videos on how she paid for school and a lot of school related videos as well so if you guys want to go check it out and she's also a super talented singer. If you guys want to go hear her sing, why are you shaking your head? She is and she has super fun vlogs. Yeah it's really, I watch her channel and it's not just because I'm her friend. I watch her because I really like her videos so you guys should check out her channel and of course I'll feature her channel at the end of today's video but let's get into it. How did you decide you wanted to come study in the US and then how did you get your visa? So I did my undergrad in Delhi so I was studying computer science and then I decided that I want to do a master's degree as well and for that I decided to apply for schools in the US and if you're planning to study in the US the process is kind of like simple you just have to apply to universities and when you get the admit they send you like all the documents and then you can start with your visa application. So when you like decide you want to study in the US it's like you basically apply for a university and they will help you figure out how to get your visa? Yes because they would send you an I-20 document and that you use that to schedule your visa appointments so that's the first step and then there will be a small interview they'll just ask basic questions which university are you going and what do you want to study and yeah and that's it and as far as the the whole process is it really expensive or is it like does a government help because I know in some countries like I have friends from Saudi Arabia where the government helps them a lot to come and study and they would even give them like monthly like a monthly amount so they could you know live and eat and all of that. For India they don't really help you and you have to pay all the fees yourself and the fee was around $400 but I don't remember and other than that there might be like some fees that your college will charge to send over the documents and everything you have to pay for yourself. And do you remember if the wait time was a lot or because I know also some places have like a lottery or something where they only allow you know like 10,000 students to do this program you know if there was any like limitations or we're like okay I want to do it and you were able to do it. So I don't think that there's like a limitation when you're applying for a student visa but there definitely is a limitation when you're applying for a work visa so the lottery is when you're applying for your H1B which is the work visa and for student visas they I haven't like heard of these but the processing times may vary for example right now like a lot of students have to wait a lot to get appointments but that's because of COVID. Yeah because that's what I was thinking like for people who want to come here as actors like if you're interested in coming to the US as a student I would assume that you know while you're here studying then they could like get hired for jobs because you worked during your schooling right so you were allowed to work? Not during my first semester but from my second semester I was allowed to work part-time so I was allowed to work 20 hours a week. Oh okay yeah and for acting I mean if you end up if you end up coming to the US and you're working here while you're a student it's very likely that you will get like a short film or a student film you're most likely not gonna get a big Hollywood film while you're here so it's not like you're gonna you know get booked up so much that you won't be able to study but that's my biggest suggestion for you if you want to come to the US to become an actor is come as a student because you're gonna have so much support and you're going to meet so many people. When I went to a university there were people from China and Italy for sure and I think maybe Japan too but there were a lot of students who came to the US either after they were done with their studies and had like you know a little bit of a program that they were able to do if you guys saw the video with Nikolai he was from Germany but a lot of people definitely do it and that's how you know I feel like that's a really easy way to like you know instead of coming with like no friends no family anything to a new country it's really cool to come as a student because you can meet so many people easily because you're in classes together and speaking of that how did you feel coming as an adult to a new country because I came here when I was four so like I don't even remember to me it's normal but did you have like culture shock what happened when you got here so it was different in some ways and some ways it was kind of similar so if you if you come from like a big city the lifestyle would probably like be the same and you lived in a big city yeah lived in Delhi right okay so you do the same things basically but maybe like in a different place yeah but apart from that yeah there was a culture shock because I had to now do things that I didn't do back home and so I learned to cook and clean and all which I should have known but living in India is a bit different like you don't really go out and do your own groceries and oh you don't who does that so either you have people who do it for you or the vendors come right to your doorstep oh yeah you can just like go down yeah that's so true like even in Mexico I mean even even in Mexico like my family is not wealthy at all but there's always like people coming from other countries or from like like they just have less money so you're able to hire them for like a reasonable price and they also come like door to door sell you water gas bread vegetables you're so right yeah I um but that's hilarious you're like I had to learn to clean and cook I love cleaning like I love organizing so hearing that was like what yeah I'm a weirdo I have to like read my living room yes and organize if you need anything I just organize my mom's like whole pantry um and did did you ever get homesick because for me I moved only to the Bay Area from north like near Sacramento for college and every time I said bye to my mom and I would see her like every weekend I would just cry so how did you how did you like adjust with that I mean obviously you it's easy for you to make friends because you're like super outgoing but how how did that work out for you yeah I think like goodbyes are the hardest yes leaving home that it hits you the most that time yeah but if you have friends there that here that helps a lot and basically like if you kind of like celebrate the same festivals that you used to do that you used to back home then that like it's like a little piece of home here yeah yeah and sometimes you have like distant relatives and then you kind of like talk to them so that also helps like yeah makes you feel more and I'm sure there were a lot of people in like that were here that also were in the same situation that came from India yeah right yeah that was most of my friend group in college oh okay so that definitely helps I feel like with like feeling like you are home because same thing with me I moved out to college with two of my best friends from high school and well one of them was like my best friend and the other one was more of like a friend that I've known forever but they were both Mexican and it was really easy to like cook the same meals and we knew they liked it where you know if we were roommates and I cooked like I don't know like there's I would still like it you would still like it but some of them you'd probably be like that's weird like pig skin like I love pig skin um like Alex hates it my boyfriend so I feel like there's certain foods and you'd be like hmm but that's good that's good that you were able to find like a community where you felt like you were at home and would you recommend this experience to other people like whether they're coming for acting or singing or engineering like would you recommend people to like go to a different country for part of their college experience yeah I definitely recommend this to like people not just like for college but also like if you just want to travel alone uh you should because that helps you grow and changes you in so many ways I feel that it has helped me a lot like personality wise and like talking to new people making more friends because I was kind of like a bit introverted when I was in Delhi but then when I moved to the city like you have to make new friends and do everything yourself so you naturally become like a better person and learn so much yeah and you learn how to clean and cook no but I totally agree with that like I have a little sister and I always say like I hope she goes off to college like somewhere because going to like community college or like he said your undergrad at home to like save money or to just because that's what you have to do or want to do is really great but really pushing yourself out there and doing things um makes you so much more confident and just going for it especially in acting you have to just go for it like I've been pursuing acting for almost 14 years but I have recently found out like I just need to keep doing it and keep going you know because a lot of years I was afraid to audition and you know interviews are very similar to audition so you can imagine like being told no like 12 times a month for job interviews oh god you know well thank you so much shabali for coming on to the channel today and if you guys have any additional questions about coming to the us from india specifically maybe we can do another video in the future for her channel so you guys can go check out her channel um or maybe she can answer them in the comments so thank you so much for watching and at the end of every video I feature another channel and today of course can be shabali's channel go check it out leave her a comment tell her you saw her from my channel and um I'm a good one