How I Passed the Citizenship Interview

This week I had a chance to experience first-hand what some may call “the most important interview of your life” – the Naturalization (aka Citizenship) interview. I have been a Green Card holder for many years now and finally this week I had my appointment.

I should probably start with admitting I wasn't that nervous to begin with. The interview consists of several parts – Civil Test, reading and writing, Application questions part – and I was prepared for the most part.

I began studying for the Civil Test part a few weeks prior to the appointment. This part includes 100 relatively easy questions about the US history and political structure. There are very straight forward questions like “Who is the President of the US?” and “What is the capital?” At the same time some questions definitely require looking up some information ahead of time like learning who my Senate and House representatives were.

When it comes to preparing for the questions about my application I tried to be reasonable. Of course, I know what my name and address are and I can probably remember where and when I started my last job. However, trying to memorize the dates of all the trips I've made outside of the US in the past 8 years seemed like a waste of time. So I didn't bother.

On the morning of the interview I woke up early and gathered all of my paperwork in one place. Even so I still managed to show up at the Federal Plaza without the appointment letter. I panicked for a second but the security person at the entrance assured me it was not an issue.  However, the lines at the door were. Since they do airport style security checks for everyone trying to enter the building it took me 35 minutes to just get to the right room.

The area was very crowded and the person who accepted my paperwork warned me that the wait could be up to 2 hours. Nevertheless, as soon as I've made myself comfortable in front of one of the TVs my name was called. I almost didn't expect it – it has been less than 10 minutes!

The USCIS officer who took me to one of the cubicles looked like any other person in the street. At first he did not seem to be friendly but as the interview progress he warmed up quite a bit. He began with making me raise my right hand and promise to tell the truth. We then proceeded to questions about my application. He asked me things like my name, social security number, address, phone number, etc. and put a red check mark next to the corresponding fields on my application. After we were done, the officer asked me to read a sentence “When is Columbus Day?” This was followed by him asking me to write “Columbus Day is in October.” Pretty straight forward, I thought.

The next step was the Civil Test and the officer has written down my answers to the 6 questions. I believe you get 10 questions total and you must answer 6 correctly. Since I gave the right answers to all six he did not bother asking me the remaining 4.

And then 15 minutes in … it was over. The officer made me sign a bunch of paper work, like put my signature next to all of the answers I have given him and things like that. He then stamped a big red “Approved” mark on top of my paperwork and told me we were done.

I couldn't believe how fast and easy the interview was. It felt a bit surreal and didn't even give the feeling of satisfaction I was expecting. Oh well, I guess what really matters is that I have passed and will have my oath ceremony in a few weeks. Hopefully, that event will give me the excitement and feeling of accomplishment I have been looking for. After all, you only become a US citizen once.