Ellington

When UW junior Helen Olsen first learned about the honors program’s study-abroad option in Sierra Leone, she knew it was for her.

“When I heard about the program to Sierra Leone, I thought, ‘How crazy is it that you send people to a region that most people consider to be a war zone or a post-civil-war zone?,’ so I wanted to learn more about it,” Olsen said. “The more I started to learn about the program, I realized that there aren’t any study abroad programs like this one.”

With a double major in public health and geography and a minor in African studies, Olsen felt it was important to go to Sierra Leone to understand the history of colonialism and the systems of power as well as the importance of fertility and its impact on women’s health.

Olsen was among 25 students who were selected for the Fritz Undergraduate Scholarship out of 258 applicants. As a Fritz scholar, she received a scholarship that helped pay airfare and other expenses for her month-long stay in Sierra Leone.

During the program, Olsen stayed with a host family and volunteered at a local community clinic where she spent a lot of time talking to local women and hearing their life stories.

“Studying abroad reaffirmed why I was interested in public health. You can sit in class and study the theory, but when you put a face to what you are studying, it becomes an incredibly visceral and personal experience,” Olsen said.

The UW Global Opportunities program offers two scholarships specifically for students going abroad. The first is the Global Opportunities (GO!) Scholarship, which is open to all majors who are Pell Grant and Husky Promise-eligible, and the second is the Fritz, which is open to students majoring in the humanities and social sciences. GO! and Fritz Scholarship awards range between $2,000 and $5,000 for each recipient.

After returning from study abroad, scholars are invited to participate in a new program called the GO! and Give Back. This gives GO! and Fritz Scholars the opportunity to share their experiences with the UW community by either becoming a Global Opportunities peer mentor or participating in individual projects.

Sara Stubbs, the Global Opportunities adviser for the Center for Experimental Learning, said that one important element of the program is that the scholars are able to choose how they’d like to give back so the project is more meaningful for them.

“For some students, that means serving as a GO! or Fritz peer mentor and talking with other UW students about their experiences,” Stubbs said. “For other students, that means sharing a video or written reflection of their experiences or creating a guide or tool to share with other students. The type of project is less important to us than that the project is meaningful to the scholar and allows them to share their experience with the UW community.”

One of the ways that scholars have been able to share their study-abroad experiences is through the UW Global Opportunities Facebook page and Student Scrapbook, a student-written blog.

“It’s really important for students thinking about applying for the GO! and Fritz Scholarships to be able to come to our website and Facebook page and see many perspectives on study abroad,” Stubbs said. “Hopefully, UW students visiting the pages will see somebody there that they identify with, whether it’s because of an academic interest, their background, the country visited, or some other reason.”

Stubbs said there has been a huge variety of projects for the GO! and Give Back program. Some projects that students have already done include videos, written reflections, and translating a song by a musician met abroad.

A lot of students have also been interested in becoming peer mentors, and there are currently 17 GO! and Fritz peer mentors who will provide information to other students through small and large group presentations, Stubbs added.

“I think it’s really great to have Fritz and GO! Scholarship mentors because I didn’t know about them when I went to apply for my scholarship,” Olsen said. “I think it’s so valuable to have people who have been on study abroad … [who are] able to speak to the value of having that scholarship and to guide potential scholarship recipients through the process. I also think it’s good to raise awareness about study abroad and the opportunities for funding which we have on campus.”

Many of the mentors spoke at the Meet and Greet event yesterday at Mary Gates Hall, which is a means for past GO! and Fritz scholars to meet with students who are interested in applying for the scholarships and talk about their experiences abroad.

Jessica Baskaran, a senior majoring in Latin American studies, went to Denmark on the GO! scholarship. She said the program allowed her to “see below the surface” and view herself in a different way.

“I think when you get the opportunity to do different things and see different people, you really stretch the limits of what you know and you’re forced to examine your world differently,” Baskaran said.

During her trip, she was also able to visit Turkey with her class and hear first-hand accounts from Iraqi migrants and refugees in Turkey.

“It made me really realize how disconnected we are from the rest of the world,” she said. “I’ve never talked with someone who’s been in direct suffering from the current wars. It was really humbling and kind of surreal.”

The scholarship helped pay for her airfare, living expenses, and other necessities.

“The scholarship helped me focus on learning and not worry about pinching pennies,” Baskaran said. “Instead, I was able to get the most I could out of being in Europe.”

Michael Peralta, a senior majoring in American Ethnic Studies and Geography who is also a GO! mentor, will speak about his study-abroad experience in the Philippines.

“For me, it was especially meaningful because I’m Filipino-American and I’m going to my family’s homeland, which is a place I’ve been waiting to go,” Peralta said. “I always wanted to go on study abroad, but it didn’t happen because of finances, and. this past summer, I was able to go because of [the] scholarships.”

Peralta said the trip was an extremely rewarding experience because he was able to meet some members of his family for the first time and learn about the culture and lifestyle in which his family.

“Being able to engage with the culture of the Philippines, whether it’s through food, through dance, or through service was a unique and remarkable experience that you can’t find in the classroom,” Peralta said.

As a GO! peer mentor, Peralta hopes to be able to spread the word about the Fritz and GO! Scholarships.

“For me, I see scholarships as an investment in an individual and our potentials to succeed and be outstanding global citizens … and it wasn’t until I started getting scholarships that I realized this,” Peralta said. “I’m hoping by spreading the word and doing outreach about unique opportunities like the GO!, I can only hope that others will feel the same way. … It’s a snowball effect.”

Junior Ryan Trinidad, a communication major, went to Ghana for a month using the GO! Scholarship. He said it is important for scholars to give back, because studying abroad is a really powerful and unique opportunity that students should share with others.

Trinidad made a video called “Sankofa,” which translates to “going back to learn from the past.” The video is featured on the Global Opportunities website and highlights his experiences abroad and captures the diversity of his study-abroad program.

“I think that a lot of times, when people go abroad, they say it’s amazing or that it changed their life, and they can say that, but it’s different when they can show it,” Trinidad said. “Not only was the trip powerful, but I showcased the trip with the video, and it shows so many positive things about our Ghana group and studying abroad, so it’s a good thing.”

During his trip, Trinidad volunteered as a teacher for a week at an elementary school.

“We made some really good connections with the community and especially with the children we taught,” Trinidad said. “By the end of the week, when we were done with the service, I could see kids crying, and it was sad but it shows how close we were to the community.”

Trinidad said that it is important to give back to the GO! program, because the trip was really meaningful to him. He hopes to raise awareness about the program.

“We learned a lot about how life is like and how we live in America versus people in Ghana. People in Ghana live more happily and more simply; it really opened our eyes to a lot of things,” Trinidad said. “I think it’s important to show students that, when they go abroad, it can be a very powerful and unique opportunity like it was for me.”

Olsen said that traveling to a new place challenges students and offers them a new perspective of the world.

“Studying abroad is about forming relationships and going to a new place and allowing yourself to be vulnerable, to be disorientated, to be destabilized and see what comes out of that,” she said. “I guarantee you if you are that open with yourself and open to new experiences, you will grow immensely.”

Reach reporter Charlotte Anthony at features@dailyuw.com.