Great Neck resident awarded scholarship for South Africa studies

Joe Nikic

As she packs her bags to spend her upcoming semester of college studying abroad in South Africa, Great Neck resident Claudia Segura said she is beginning the path to what she hopes is her future.

“I want to go to the peace corps after college and work as a diplomat as a career, and to have these experiences early on serve as preparation to seeing what the world is like beyond the western world,” Segura said. “I would love to continue traveling to all these different countries. Honestly, I’m just really grateful for these opportunities.”

While study abroad programs have become a popular choice of college students across the country, the cost of tuition, room and board, books, local transportation, insurance and international airfare can deter students from applying to study abroad.

To combat the financial constraints of her upcoming study abroad program at the University of Cape Town, Segura, a sophomore political science major at Arcadia University, was awarded the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship award.

Named after Benjamin A. Gilman, a retired congressman from New York, the scholarship is awarded to about 1,600 students across the country for study programs that “better prepare U.S. students to assume significant roles in an increasingly global economy and interdependent world,” according to the its website.

Gilman had chaired the House of Representatives’ Foreign Relations Committee while he was in office.

“Study abroad is a special experience for every student who participates,” he said. “Living and learning in a vastly different environment of another nation not only exposes our students to alternate views, but also adds an enriching social and cultural experience. It also provides our students with the opportunity to return home with a deeper understanding of their place in the world, encouraging them to be a contributor, rather than a spectator in the international community.”

Segura said she almost didn’t choose to attend Arcadia until she learned about its study abroad programs.

“Honestly, I had never even heard of the school until I got a little informational card in the mail. I wanted to go to American University, so I was set on D.C.,” she said. “What caught me was it said it was number one for study abroad programs. I was fascinated with study abroad and I knew as a fact I wanted to have a study abroad experience.”

According to its website, Arcadia University promises its students “a distinctively global, integrative, and personal learning experience that prepares students to contribute and lead in a diverse and dynamic world.”

Segura said although she is a political science major, she is more interested in the international relations aspect of the major rather than domestic politics.

She added that her interest in international relations was sparked in her senior seminar class at Great Neck North High School, where students studied education in the United States compared with education in Cambodia.

Although she had spent a week studying abroad in Chile her freshmen year, Segura said receiving the Gilman scholarship would ease the financial burden of spending an entire semester abroad.

“I was so shocked because it was a national scholarship and I honestly didn’t think I would get it,” she said.

Deciding on a location to study abroad proved to be a difficult task for Segura.

“Originally, I had wanted to go to Australia. But looking into Australia, it’s really westernized and I wanted things to be completely from the United States,” she said.

Segura added that a study abroad counselor at her school suggested studying in Cuba or South Africa.

“You never really hear of anyone going to South Africa. Africa is like a forbidden continent from what people know about its history,” she said. “I want to conquer the misrepresentations of it.”

While she has not even left for Cape Town, Segura said she already plans to encourage other students to study abroad and inform them on the Gilman scholarship once she comes back to the United States.

“I plan on promoting the scholarship and just studying abroad in general because that one week in Chile completely changed my perspective and that high school class helped open my eyes to other aspects of the world and I want to do that for someone else too,” she said.

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