By Ashley Arnold, University Relations Intern
After being awarded the nationally competitive Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship, freshman Brock Scholar DaiMeshia Seay will be spending this year’s fall semester in Australia at the University of Southern Queensland.
The Gilman Scholarship program was founded in 2000 in honor of retired New York congressman Benjamin A. Gilman. The overall purpose of this scholarship is to give traditionally under-represented students with financial difficulties the opportunity to study abroad. The intentions of the program were to provide opportunities for undergraduates to live and learn in a different culture and environment from their own in order to prepare students for work in a global society.
Seay hopes to use her semester in Australia to help her gain a better understanding of the development of Australian culture and history by taking classes such as “Indigenous Perspectives” and “Australian Stories.”
She will be returning to our Campus for the spring semester to implement the project that she developed in order to complete the Gilman application. Her project involves a series of programs that work to inform students of the Gilman Scholarship and the benefits of studying abroad.
“My project was to not only reach out to college students with this information,” says Seay, “but to parents, high school teachers and high school students.”
Seay plans to continue her project by hosting information seminars to discuss her experiences in Australian and the benefits of living and studying abroad. She also wants to address financial barriers and solutions, and encourage students to plan early.
When she arrives back at our Campus in the spring, Seay will continue to work towards a bachelor’s degree in Integrated studies. She plans to combine her interests in Biology, public administration, and business to prepare for a career in healthcare administration following graduate school.
