Three students received Critical Language Scholarships to study at intensive language institutes this summer.
John Best, biochemistry and Asian studies senior; Christina Jensen, biochemistry and Asian studies senior; and Veronica Sawyer, anthropology major, are among 575 U.S. students who will study critical-needs languages across the world.
Best and Jensen will study in eastern Asia, with Best in China and Jensen in Japan. Sawyer will spend her summer in the Eurasian country of Turkey.
The 10-week program will allow students a unique opportunity to study these languages through intensive language classes and cultural immersion activities, according to a press release.
“I am looking forward to the opportunity to spend two months just studying Japanese,” Jensen said by e-mail. “As a double major at OU, I have often been torn between studying Japanese and biochemistry. I believe that this program will greatly improve my Japanese language ability.”
The program, supported annually by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, was created in 2006 to help expand the number of students studying critical-need languages and to promote mutual understanding and respect between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.
There were 575 U.S. undergraduate and graduate students awarded by the U.S. Department of State's Critical Language Scholarship Program to study several foreign languages and cultures, according to the release.
The languages that few U.S. citizens are skilled in but have increased in importance, according to the bureau, include Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla/Bengali, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Turkish and Urdu.
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alya6062 1 year, 11 months ago
Turkey is in the same hemisphere.