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The first new J Visa holder

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Amy Feran, the first new J Visa holder

When I first came to America three years ago, I wasn't impressed.

Everything seemed familiar from the movies, and nothing was beautiful in the European sense that I had become accustomed to.

I had a fun vacation traveling around with my friend, from New York to Miami to San Diego to Chicago, but decided I'd never waste spare holidays by coming here again. If I was going traveling or vacationing, it was culture I would seek.

I had read about the massive issues here with all the undocumented Irish and how tough it is for them, and I often questioned their decision to live a risky and illegitimate life just to stay here. There were opportunities, jobs, and everything else you'd want in booming Ireland, and as a Celtic Tiger's cub I failed to see the bigger picture.

Last year, when I was in the first semester of my master's degree an opportunity that couldn't be missed arose - the opportunity to spend my second semester on an exchange program in Cornell University. While I wasn't keen on returning to the States again, I was hugely aware of the benefits of studying in an Ivy League School to my life in general, aside from the academic novelty.

I embarked on the best five-month stint of my life last January.

I fell in love with university life in America, the people in America, and the way of life in America - not to mention a handsome blonde Australian-American guy in America!

The time at Cornell flew, and I found myself back in Ireland hacking away at my thesis, but constantly looking out the rain-beaten window wondering what my next plan of action was.

I had dabbled with law, commerce and French, and all the wonderfully exciting subjects within them in my undergraduate degree, completed a master's degree in business, and still didn't know what on earth I wanted to be.

But I knew where on earth I wanted to be. In New York City.

Going to a city where jobs were being lost at a fast pace and competition is second to none, without any full U.S. qualifications and with no clue about what I wanted to do didn't bode well for me.

But I went over, started networking, a painful process for an Irish person, having to walk into a room full of new faces and somehow try to sell yourself to these random punters.

There were days where I didn't get out of bed, and my boyfriend would come home from work to find me in the exact same place - and clothes - as he had left me.

There were days where I would watch entire seasons of "Sex and the City." And there were days where I walked around Manhattan on my own planning the defeated speech I would have to give my boyfriend and everyone else before I arrived back in Ireland.

See more: irish culture, irish immigration

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