Two Study In Japan On Scholarship
Junelle Wright ’06 and Tom Minter ’05 have been
awarded the Association International Education Japan (AIEJ)
Scholarships to support their study abroad in Japan.
The student exchange scholarships provide roundtrip airfare
and a monthly stipend of approximately $750 to help defray living
expenses while studying at Meiji Gakuin University in Yokohama.
Meiji Gakuin is one of the College’s partner institutions
offering tuition exchange.
The two leave for Japan in April, and will spend four months
there.
Wright, a sophomore majoring in international studies and German,
is particularly interested in other languages and cultures,
as well as world politics. Before coming to Washington College
she spent a year studying in Germany. Because her own heritage
includes Irish, African, Indian and Chinese influences, she
has always been drawn to study other cultures, she says.
“I became interested in Japanese culture and society after
learning of the programs available at Washington College,”
says Wright, “and through my encounters with Japanese
students here on campus and during my year-long exchange in
Germany. With my international studies major, I’ve chosen
to concentrate in both East Asian and European studies.”
Minter is a philosophy major who came to Washington College
intent on a career in writing. “I ended up falling in
love with philosophy not only as fertile grounds for spurring
on creative writing, but for how curious and varied a discipline
it is,” Minter says.
He hopes to use his study abroad experience to give himself
something to write about.
“I’m passionate about stories,” he says. “Events,
characters, situations—the things that we experience and
laugh and cry about. I hope to put those things on paper and
expose others to the beauty that is living. To do so, I have
to experience what I can, when I can, and the opportunity to
go abroad now is something I couldn’t pass up.”
He, too, was drawn to the Japanese culture by his introduction
to several Japanese exchange students on campus, and his eagerness
to see the world. “With such a long and different history
from what I’ve been exposed to here, as well as the utterly
adorable friends I’ve made at Washington College through
the student exchange program, Japan called to me, loudly,”
he says. No doubt I’ll be wandering the temples in the
ancient areas of Japan with a wide-eyed wonderment I’ve
not had since, well, never.”
This will be Minter’s first trip outside of the United
States.
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