VIRTUAL CITIZENSHIP CEREMONY EXPERIENCE
Okay, so as promised, detailed below is my citizenship ceremony experience. I'll post it as three parts because I can't fit everything in one post.
PART 1
Local Office :
Mississauga IRCC
Oath Ceremony Date :
August 23rd, 2021
Oath Ceremony Time:
8:30 AM EST
IRCC Crew: 1 Citizenship Judge + 1 Administrator for Zoom + 1 Main Clerk + 3 IRCC officials (referred to as clerks)
Total # of applicants: 44
On the ceremony day
I woke up to my first alarm at 6:45 AM (and then I disabled the 6 other alarms I had created the night before).
Got ready, was browsing the forum for a while until 7:55 AM. I closed other applications, made sure my UPS was correctly working, connected my desktop to my mobile hotspot (if there are issues with the Wi-Fi modem/router), checked camera / microphone and had the Zoom application open.
At 8:00 AM sharp, I keyed in the meeting ID and the password and it said "Please wait for the host to start the meeting". At around 8:15 AM, I saw the message "The meeting host will let you in soon" and also, in the chat window, there was a message asking all of us to "rename" ourselves using the last name. It was that way until 8:25 AM when I was put in a room with the others and the administrator. The administrator was talking to another participant when I joined. I was on mute for about 2 minutes. The administrator then asked me to unmute myself and asked for my last name. I told him and then he gave me a seat # (Seat # is basically the breakout room # that you will be put in).