While many seniors are scrambling to solidify their post-graduation plans, the recently announced winners of the James B. Reynolds Scholarship for Study Abroad and the Keasbey Scholarship will soon have the opportunity to do everything from research in China to study Middle Eastern politics and play water polo in Europe.
Ervin Tu '97 was the lone senior to win the prestigious Reynolds Scholarship, which Assistant Director of Graduate Advising in Career Services Anne Janeway called the "highest academic merit scholarship for undergraduates and alumni."
Tu will use his scholarship in Taiwan to study government intervention in Chinese business and the Chinese language.
"Chinese is very important to me," he said. "Right now I only have conversational fluency. I would like to be fully fluent for both professional and personal reasons."
Tu, an economics major and government minor, said he would "actually like to be involved in business in Southeast Asia," which would allow him to utilize his Chinese fluency in addition to the business expertise he will gain during his year in Taiwan.
Tu said his motivation for applying for the Reynolds Scholarship was to have the opportunity "to do something in Taiwan that would also give the opportunity to study industrial policy."
This year's Keasbey Scholars -- who are eligible for a two-year scholarship to Oxford or Cambridge -- are Najam Haider '97 and Scott Silverman '97.
Keasbey nominees are chosen from among Rhodes and Marshall scholarship applicants.
Haider, a physics and government double major, plans to use his Keasbey Scholarship to study for two years at University College Oxford. He said he plans to study "politics in the modern Middle East."
Haider said a great deal of the reading necessary for his degree is in Arabic, so he will spend a year after graduation in Syria to gain some cultural and linguistic understanding before going to Oxford.
The Oxford program is "very intensive," he said, but will provide him with a degree in political science that is higher than a masters.
Haider said he will be starting his two years at Oxford in the fall of 1998 and then hopes to enter a Ph.D. program.
He said the Keasbey really "opens the door" to higher degrees which will allow him to become a professor.
Silverman will be spending two years at University College Oxford, where he expects to probably be working with a doctor or someone else involved in gene therapy.
After applying for the Rhodes and Marshall Scholarships, Silverman said he wanted a chance to develop his interest in applied biomedical ethics before going onto graduate school.
Silverman said he "developed a curiosity about the philosophical and the ethical aspects" of genetic technology while he was studying it
A biochemistry and molecular biology double major, Silverman said many of his plans are not finalized, but he will play for the water polo team in England.
Janeway said students interested in learning more about graduate scholarship opportunities should attend a scholarship meeting on April 14 at the Rockefeller Center.
Belinda Ng '98 and James Hourdequin '97 will hear today if they are winners of the Harry Truman Scholarship, a program for students interested in a career in public service. Both Ng and Hourdequin advanced to the final round of the scholarship competition.
Frank Aum '97, Daniel Fehlauer '97, Jennifer Guy '97, Haider, Esther Lee '97 and Susan Podsadowski '96 will soon hear whether they have advanced to the next level in the competition for Fulbright scholarships.
