Gilman Scholarship

The Gilman Scholarship is a scholarship available for students who are recipients of the Pell Grant (and therefore in need of financial aid), who are studying abroad in non-Western European countries such as Africa, Asia, India, etc.

The application for the scholarship is fairly simple and they award over 1000 scholarships a year, so you have a good shot at getting one if you apply. You are asked to write a couple of essays, but they aren't that big of a deal. They just require some thinking, reflection, and dedication. I can help you come up with ideas for a follow-on project if you like as well. I know this part of scholarships can be a little bit tough. But a blog is one idea of how to promote and reflect on your studies! One of the essays asks for a statement of purpose of sorts. The other is a detailed description of how you would promote this scholarship program after returning home (which honestly, is not so hard to do - I do it on a daily basis with people who are curious about studying abroad).

The biggest question I get is "how do I afford it?" For the answer to that question, I will provide the following links to my fellow UNCG-ers.

Financial Aid office:http://fia.uncg.edu/
Study Abroad: http://www.uncg.edu/reg/Catalog/current/StudyAbroad/intro.html
Gilman Scholarship: http://www.iie.org//programs/gilman/index.html

Since I want to avoid plagarism but I know that the Gilman website offers the most consise, accurate and adequate definition of what its purpose is, I will offer you this:

http://www.iie.org/programs/gilman/overview/overview.html

Please, please check it out. It IS possible for you to study abroad. You CAN graduate on time and you CAN afford it! Ask me any questions you have about the Gilman Scholarship, about other means of financial aid (I would not have been able to study abroad without both of them, and certainly not twice!), or about finding the country which is right for you.

I am currently updating, critiquing, and editing my previous entries you guys have probably already read, before I put them up on this travel blog as to avoid being repeditive. I also want to provide new insight as to how I feel about Ghana over a year later and how I reflect on France several months after having gotten back. Please be patient! New info is coming soon!

France.

L'Universite de Rennes II, France.

Please excuse the lack of accent marks. France. Now, it is absolutely imperative you understand that I cannot speak for all of France, nor can I speak for anyone else's experience in France. I lived in Rennes, about 2 hours west of Paris in Northwestern France from August 2008 through December 2008.

Part of my heritage is that of French, and ever since I was little I have studied their culture and language. I always knew I wanted to travel to France, and to have the opportunity to live there was one I could not turn down. The classes I took there were predominantly classes in French language and culture which were taught in French and which I took with other foreign students. Unlike Ghana, where most of the students were American, very few at this university were. It made for a great opportunity to meet not only French students, but Asian, African, European, and Australian students interested in French language and French culture.

I was not able to travel the way in France that I was able to travel in Ghana unfortunately. For one reason, it was much less expensive to travel in Ghana. For another, the economic crisis in the United States was having repercussions for Americans traveling abroad. Not only was the dollar losing value, but there was a horrible stigma attached to Americans abroad. This made is difficult to become friends with French students, but I managed to find a few who really valued friendship.

Of course, friendship in France was different than friendship in Ghana or America. As it seems to me, Americans will befriend anyone rhetorically but rarely do Americans take their new friends to a new level of friendship - the one beyond cordial waves as you pass each other in campus and casual talks in coffee shops. In Ghana, I found that Americans were accepted by the culture openly but this degree of "kindness to strangers" was often extended to a stronger friendship. In France, rarely to the French befriend anyone on the surface level without an intention of building a stronger friendship with them later. This was frustrating at first, as I felt outcasted but I soon realized this is simply a cultural difference that perhaps Americans could seek to learn from.

I traveled to Paris while I was there. It was wet and rainy...hardly the best traveling experience, but for what it's worth, I did enjoy it in the sense that I got to visit Paris, see the tourist attractions, and shop. But Rennes was much more my area than Paris. I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed the markets in Rennes - probably my favorite part. We're talking fresh everything - fruit, vegetables, meat, seafood, etc. Not to mention a giant flea market-type scenario, selling everything from meaningless trinkets to journals to jewelry to kitchen gadgets. Hands down, my favorite aspect about France was the Saturday morning markets.

The good thing about traveling to France is I can now speak the language and can now speak on the culture. The bad thing is I'm not there anymore.

Ghana.

The University of Ghana, 2007.

I studied abroad in Ghana from August 2007 through December 2007. It was my first time abroad, and to go to West Africa was understandably dream-like. I had researched the country extensively but nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to experience.

I traveled to Ghana with the the International Student Exchange Program (http://www.isep.org/). This was a fantastic program which really aided in my assimilation to the culture and reduced culture shock a great deal for me. Unfortunately, it was expensive. I started looking into scholarships and found the Gilman Scholarship (http://www.iie.org//programs/gilman/index.html). This scholarship is really what made the ideas of studying abroad possible for me, so I ran with it.

In Ghana, I was able to not only learn about the culture as an outsider, but to become a part of it and integrate into the culture. I was taught how to prepare particular meals, how to interact in a different language, how to haggle with street venders, how to wash my own clothes, how to take bucket showers, how to eat with my fingers, how to tolerate heat, and more importantly, why it is that these experiences were so important.

I had three or four close friends in Ghana - Jennifer, Amelia, Halley, and Margot. I went most places with one or more of them. We traveled to the north of Ghana, to the middle, to the sides. We ourselves lived on the coast of Ghana in a city called Accra. An urban city. So no, there were no monkeys running around and I didn't ride elephants to class. Food was readily available and yes, there were grocery stores and restaurants.

There was construction everywhere. I mean...everywhere. I never fully understood what exactly a "developing country" was until I lived in Ghana. To see a country on the verge of an industrial revolution is so exciting - the convenience we enjoy in the United States is just beginning to become a reality in cities like Accra, in countries like Ghana, on continents like Africa. Of course, I couldn't help but be nervous for them. Knowing what I know now about what industrialization and capitalism does to a society, I see industrialization as a "necessary but impossible" entity.

I took directing class, a foreign policy class, an acting class, a Ghanaian literature class, as well as a class in the dialect of Twi. I certaintly learned a good deal from my schooling there, but perhaps most imporantly, I realized the implications that a colonizer/colonized identity of a country has on it teaching methods and its culture. More on that later.

Briefly, what I took away from Ghana is now inherent in my being - the way I think, the way I rationalize, the way I write and paint and act. Studying abroad (especially in non western european countries) will have a profound, inexpressable impact on who you are, and how you understand the world.

Welcome.

I know that you guys have read about my experiences to Ghana and France (and no doubt heard me talk about them) but I decided to create a blog dedicated to my experiences for a few reasons. First, I want to encourage anyone out there who is even remotely interested in studying abroad to seriously consider their possibilities. Second, I want to encourage those interested to study abroad in a place outside of their comfort zone - to avoid western Europe. I had the good fortune to have an opportunity to study abroad in both France and Ghana and I can tell you, hands down, Ghana was more rewarding on practically every level. Third, I want to expose the options students have for financial aid and scholarship opportunities. Studying abroad doesn't have to be as big of a burden as you think!

I want to mention the Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship (http://www.iie.org//programs/gilman/index.html). Without it, I would never have studied abroad at all, and I might be the same person I was 2 years ago.

As part of a follow-on project for this particular scholarship, I have decided to create this blog. I want anyone to feel free to ask me any questions they like about Ghana, France, or studying abroad in general. Even if I can't answer your questions, I can direct you to someone who can! I studying theatre, political science, french, and literature in these countries so I can also give you insight on those topics.