College Jumpstart Scholarship Essay April 2017

PROMPT: How will winning this scholarship help you attain your goals? Please answer in 250 words or less.

During the upcoming spring semester, I will study at Sophia University in Tokyo. While in Japan, I want to strengthen my Japanese writing skills and understand Japanese economics. Most importantly, I plan to empower minority high-school and college students with interests in going abroad who, like me, come from financially challenged homes. Winning this scholarship would fully cover my airfare, which is fundamental in achieving these goals - their achievement requires my physical presence.

Lack of immediate means to pay is a key reason students may decide to settle for lower cost study abroad programs that may not fully align with their goals and potential. In most cases, financial hardships lead students to completely opt out of studying abroad, seeing it as impossible. In my high-school, this was a common sentiment held by myself and other students. Realistically, affording the dream study abroad program entails fundraising, working, and applying for scholarships, assigning specific costs to these scholarships. Typically, students lose hope in this piecing together of resources, because it is not explained.

I want my experience to jump-start this discussion. First, I want to create a vlog during my time abroad, guiding students through the study abroad process and its financial aspect. Routine in-person presentations at my high-school and university are also key. While there is no set formula on studying abroad, these presentations and resources will spark belief in students’ hearts to realize their study abroad aspirations, because they will believe and know they can.

Word Count: 245

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About Me

My name is Kadrian Alyce Oliver and I am a sophomore pursuing my Bachelors degree in Global Business and International Political Economy at the The University of Texas at Dallas. My interest in understanding global business and the global economy stems from a strong desire to create more opportunities for all individuals, but especially young students, limited by socioeconomic and educational barriers, to achieve excellence beyond their local communities. As a student of Global Business and as a Diversity Outreach Mentor for UT Dallas, I focus on contributing to the expansion of educational opportunity in hopes to solve education inequity. More about me: LinkedIn Instagram Beyond studying for classes, I am a fencer for the university, fencing foil, a member of the Japanese Language Association, and Toastmasters. In my free time I like to blog, workout, and study more Japanese. I hope that you can find this blog greatly beneficial in navigating through colleg...

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