Citizenship Approved!

This past term in government my teacher challenged all government students to complete a modified form of the United States Citizenship Test, or simply put the Civics Test. There were many purposes for taking the test and also many valuable lessons learned. Overall, I felt as if the main purpose for us, as students of government striving to become responsible U.S. citizens ourselves, was to understand how difficult it is to become an American citizen. At the same time we needed to understand how highly sought-after citizenship here is in the United States too. To begin the topic of citizenship, we started by taking a practice quiz based solely off of each individual student’s common knowledge about the United States. After filling in all the answers we knew or attempted to guess on the quiz, we graded it; immediately after grading it most of us realized had we not been born in the states, then we wouldn’t have passed the Civics Test the first time around… and I think it’s interesting that our instructor really got the point across that it is not as easy as we envisioned to gain citizenship here. I’d say my favorite part of the unit was taking the test, learning all the information and then retaking the citizenship quiz and passing it. I felt a real sense of accomplishment and I too felt very proud “simulating” gaining my citizenship. Later Dr. Ostroff had shared with us in class that day how he’d been to one of the Citizenship Oath Ceremonies saying, “It was one of the best things I have ever experienced.” As he said this it spoke to me because even as Dr. O was just spectating in the crowd at the ceremony, he was moved by it; it was so moving in fact, that he followed up the last statement by saying to the class, “I was almost brought to tears and it is something I believe everyone should experience at least once in their life.” From taking the quiz and hearing these terrific experiences, I now hope that one day I may attend a ceremony myself.

People hold flags as they are sworn in as U.S. citizens during a naturalization ceremony on Tuesday, July 2, 2010 in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)

The process to becoming an American citizen is pretty complex but many say the pay-off and wait is much worth it. Since the process is very long, so I have left a link that can be found here on AllLaw.com that breaks it down step by step. On Quora.com, an interactive website that is available world-wide where users may pose questions and have them answered by users, I searched the question: What is it like to become an American citizen? One answer in particular that caught my eye was a response from a user by the name of Ann Cun. In her answer, she responds to the question saying, “It was a pretty freakin’ awesome experience for me personally.” This opening statement alone probably relates to a lot of others newly certified citizens as well, which is why I chose to read her answer. She proceeds in her reply telling her whole story and how she completed all her forms in college to file for citizenship and spent a lot of hard hours studying for the Civics Test. At the end of her answer she recounts her ceremony and how she felt during it saying, “I felt a great sense of pride and community” and when she said this, it was literally exactly the equivalent of how I had felt after passing the quiz. She felt as if the time she’d put in preparing for the test to gain citizenship had paid off.

Altogether I just thoroughly enjoyed the citizenship portion of the unit and thought to share my experience of it and compare it to that of someone who had done the actual process. It’s very interesting seeing how similar everything was although my experience wasn’t as significant as the real deal.