AUI-S Voice Staff Reporter
www.auisvoice.org
The Fulbright Scholarship for foreign students is a two-year study program at one of the U.S. universities, and it is sponsored by the U.S. State Department.
On May 13 at the Administration Building of AUI-S, there was a lecture about this program, and the AUI-S students became more familiar with the program.
R. Madison Conoley, the Public Diplomacy Section Chief of the U.S. Regional Reconstruction team, and Sara Mercado, the Public Diplomacy Officer of the RRT of the Kurdistan region of Iraq, explained the Fulbright program for the AUI-S students.
The Fulbright program creates both the educational and cultural exchanges between the United States and other countries.
“Fulbright is the educational and cultural exchange program,” Conoley said. “The United States is formed by people coming from other places, we benefit from their knowledge and their study.
We would like to send our scholars to study in the foreign nations and to bring the foreign scholars into the America to study at our universities, creating both educational and cultural exchange. That is the reason that we provide the Fulbright scholarship.”
The door for getting Fulbright scholarship is open for all for the Iraqi students once they have their undergraduate degrees, and now there are a number of Iraqi students who got the scholarship.
“I can tell you over the past couple years the number of the Iraqi students who have gone to the U.S. are around 70, which is a high number as compared with the [students] in the other countries,” Conoley added.
“So, the Iraqi students have done very well applying for the Fulbright scholarship, and the students in this region [Kurdistan] of Iraq have done very well as well. We will welcome any Iraqi student to study at the U.S. not only for the Fulbright scholarship program but also for other scholarship programs.”
John Agresto, the AUI-S provost, said he believe that the AUI-S students will be more successful than most other universities in winning many Fulbright awards. “I believe our students will be very successful in winning many Fulbright awards,” he said.
“More successful than most other universities.Two good things will flow from this beyond the value to those student who receive the awards: First, our students will show to the rest of Iraq how valuable and good an AUI-S education really is; and, second, I believe that when our students go to the USA, and Americans see all that our students have accomplished in their studies, that they will bring to this university high honor and great respect.”
Acording to the Fulbright program, the students who have only one year left to complete their bachelor’s degree can apply for the Fulbright scholarship in anticipation of graduation.
“The students who are in the pre-acadmic study do not qualify yet for the scholarship,” said Mercado. “You must be in your third year and have only one year left to complete your bachelor’s degree; that is when you can apply for your scholarship to go to the Fulbright.”
Mercado added that the ways to get to the Fulbright scholarship for the AUI-S students are easier as compared with the other Iraqi students.
“The students at the AUI-S are very benefited by the fact that their instruction is in English,” she said. “And the AUI-S students will have a great deal of advantage by having such a long tradition, having worked, and studied in English at the University.”
Several AUI-S students said the Fulbright program is a very important program and a good opportunity to study in the United States.
The Fulbright “is important because it provides a new environment and different ways of learning for the students,” said Enji Issa, 22, from Kirkuk. “It will give the students a lot of experience.It will prepare the students for life by helping them find jobs via their experience that they will have through that program. I apply for that program because I want to be in different environment and know different people.”
Nina Hassan, 19, from Rania, said students should start thinking about the Fulbright now.
“It will be much better if the students have a chance to get it before their graduation because the students are more eager to learn before their graduation [and] not after that.”
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