Linfield College senior Brooke Batchelor of Visalia, Calif., will spend spring semester immersed in South Korean culture after earning a prestigious Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship.
The $3,000 scholarship will enable Batchelor, a communication arts major who transferred to Linfield in fall 2014, to study at Yonsei University in Seoul for a semester this spring.
While there she plans to study Korean, international communication and taekwondo. She also hopes to join a club that visits different Korean companies in order to gain insight into how organizations work in different cultures.
“It is a truly unique culture that is developing and changing so quickly, but it still keeps one foot in the past,” said Batchelor, who may ultimately pursue a master’s degree in intercultural communications. “I will be exposed to this culture that is vastly different than my own, but this experience will shape who I am and I believe that it will set me on a path that will point me towards my future.”
Linfield College has a long-standing exchange with Yonsei University, routinely sending Linfield students to their campus and welcoming two to four Yonsei students for a semester or year stay.
Batchelor is one of approximately 800 American undergraduate students from 355 colleges and universities across the U.S. selected to receive the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs to study or intern abroad during the spring 2016 academic term. The Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program funds approximately 125 study programs around the world for undergraduate students of limited financial means. Recipients of the award are chosen on a competitive basis.
