Where It All Started

Ever since I could remember I have always been drawn to the cultures of the Middle East. My Grandfather was born in Dinar, Turkey and was educated in his country, and graduated with an engineering degree from the University of Ankara. He then came to the United States to work as an engineer. It is here in the US where he met my Grandmother and started his family. He passed away when I was young, but he has left a lasting influence in my life. From a young age I have been determined to learn about the culture of my Grandfather. In middle school when many kids would be watching TV or playing video games, I would be reading books and watching documentaries about the history and culture of the Middle East. However, I have always felt that I have had this special connection to the Turkish culture. In the Summer of 2011 my family had the opportunity to spend two weeks in Turkey and travel with my Father's cousins. It was an unbelievable experience and I became overwhelmed with the amount I wanted to take in during my brief cultural immersion. This trip to Turkey only furthered my desire to learn and experience Turkish culture and language. Even though I devoted my trip to learning the language and internalizing every experience, I felt as though I had only scratched the surface. I came home with a purpose to learn even more about their culture and to find a way to study abroad there some day. 

My Brother and I in Istanbul, Turkey. (2011)

I was visiting colleges in the summer of 2012 and while I was at Bucknell my tour guide said he had studied abroad in Russia through a State Department Scholarship during high school. The program he went on was called NSLI-Y. The National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y), sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, provides merit-based scholarships for eligible high school students to learn less commonly taught languages in summer and academic-year overseas immersion programs.Turkish is one of the languages included. When he told me about the program, I realized this is the type of opportunity I had been looking for. While researching similar programs I came across another fully paid State Department Scholarship to study abroad. The Kennedy-Lugar YES Abroad program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State offers American high school students and recent graduates in the U.S. full scholarships for up to one academic year in countries with significant Muslim populations. Turkey is one of these countries. So I had decided to apply to both of them in order to have the chance to study in Turkey next year. The applications were said to come out in late summer, so throughout the summer I checked every day sometimes multiple times a day to see if the applications were out. When they had come out, I spent much of my time writing, rewriting, and editing the essays for each application. Many hours that should have been spent studying were devoted to these applications. But it certainly was worth it.

In January I was selected as a semi finalist for NSLI-Y, and in February I was selected as a semi finalist for YES Abroad. The next process in the application is the interview. I had a local interview for NSLI-Y and I had a three day In Person Selection Event (IPSE) in Chevy Chase, Maryland for YES Abroad. Both interviews went very well, but I felt that the IPSE for YES Abroad more thoroughly analyzed the semi-finalist and I felt that this might be the better program. After constantly checking my email all spring I finally recieved an email that said I had been selected as a finalist for YES Abroad and I was told that I would be living in Turkey next year. I was ecstatic and I could not believe that I was given this incredible experience. A week later I was selected as a finalist for NSLI-Y as well. Those few weeks were quite surreal as the whole thing was beginning to set in. I ended up choosing YES Abroad because the program felt more organized and there was more of an emphasis on experiencing the culture rather than just  learning the language. I will devote my summer to preparing myself for this 9 month excursion to the land of my ancestors.