NSLI-Y and Me

I discovered the State Department's National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) program my sophomore year when my Chinese teacher posted a link to their website on our class page. I remember my excitement when I first researched the program.

I applied that fall and received the scholarship. I traveled to 珠海 (Zhu hai), a coastal city in Southern China near Hong Kong, for seven weeks in the summer of 2015. My world expanded infinitely as I met amazing people and pushed myself to do things I had never previously dreamed I could do. Mandarin became so much more than a list of vocabulary words; it was the language that connected me to everyone I met that summer and tied all my memories of the experience together. Because of this trip, I resolved to achieve fluency in Mandarin.

Last fall, I again applied for a NSLI-Y Scholarship. In the midst of the craziness that is senior year, I had practically forgotten about NSLI-Y until finalist notifications started to be released. I was shocked when I opened the email informing me I had received the NSLI-Y Scholarship. All of the sudden, studying abroad for a year was no longer a cool idea but a very real possibility.

I am incredibly blessed to say I was able to defer my admission to the University of Notre Dame for a year and accept the NSLI-Y Scholarship. I will be living in Kaohsiung, Taiwan from August 2017 to June 2018 and studying at The Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages. The city of Kaohsiung looks beautiful. I've watched this video of aerials of the city on YouTube multiple times:

I can't wait to see the city for myself!