"...I was able to experience a country and culture very different from my own while also studying that country's language. I believe this was a genuinely life-changing experience, and it has allowed me/will allow me to better understand myself and my identity, not just in the US but from a global perspective."
I am a low-income student, and as such, before college, I was never able to leave the country; I didn't even have a passport. Thanks to the Kyoto Consortium Summer: Modern Japanese (KCJS) program (and an unrelated study-abroad program I did last summer), however, I was able to experience a country and culture very different from my own while also studying that country's language. I believe this was a genuinely life-changing experience, and it has allowed me/will allow me to better understand myself and my identity, not just in the US but from a global perspective. Moreover, thanks to KCJS, my Japanese fluency has improved dramatically, and I was even able to form a genuine friendship in my non-native language.
I think my favorite experience from my time at KCJS was a solo trip I did to Tokyo, in order to visit some friends who were visiting/studying abroad. Tokyo is a bustling metropolis, one which utterly swallows resident and tourist alike in its unbelievable scale, one entirely different from the quiet, austere and historic city of Kyoto, or even the greater Kansai region generally. KCJS and the GLS award, in conjunction, made this possible, as the former provided a solo travel reimbursement of 20,000 yen (~130 USD), and the latter covered most of my other expenses for my time in Japan.
That's just one of my many wonderful experiences studying abroad! Without the Global Learning Scholarship award, I would've missed out on this very formative and enlightening experience.
