An intelligent, ambitious young scholar sits before me at an outdoor café near APU, where we converse in French. She listens attentively to my stories about living in Belgium more than 20 years ago on a Fulbright Scholarship. The poignancy of the moment is not lost on me as I realize my role reversal from student to mentor. I ponder the legacies generated by this great scholarship program and try to imagine how the one beginning right before my eyes will unfold over the years. We peruse travel books and pretend our French café is in Europe, both wondering what’s in store for this remarkable woman. Meet my student, my friend, Alice Serar!  
Carole Lambert, Ph.D., Director of Research

Window to the World
Sporting pigtails and armed with a pink Minnie Mouse suitcase, I anxiously awaited departure on my childhood dream vacation to Orlando, Florida. With two hours to spare, my dad took me by the hand and we wandered around Los Angeles International Airport. Stopping at the threshold of the international terminal, I gazed with awe at the swarms of people of every nationality bustling throughout the room.

As he guided his captivated six-year-old daughter through the terminal, my dad explained that the people passing by came from all over the world. I remember little of our family’s week-long adventure at “the happiest place on earth,” but I will always recall that moment when the enormity of the world hit me, and I realized I belonged to an international community.

Leap of Faith
This snapshot of an awestruck young girl stumbling upon her life’s ambition must have touched someone’s heart on the Fulbright Scholarship Selection Committee. I always find it challenging to capture who I am in the short personal statements I conjure up for various applications. All the words I delicately arrange into a paragraph or two about my interests and goals hardly offer a glimpse into what makes me me. How do I explain that I have always preferred CNN and The Economist to MTV or Cosmopolitan? That a wall-sized world map flanks my bedroom wall, and books about the Middle East peace process and European integration clutter my shelves? That my bottomless ambition and burning desire to see every inch of God’s earth have kept me daydreaming for years of the moment I would walk through that international terminal at LAX and journey to a foreign land?

As clichéd as it may sound, I have always held the conviction that I am handcrafted by God, unique in my interests and in His plan for me. Without a background as a missionary’s kid or diplomat’s daughter, and with little travel experience outside the treacherous annual family road trip as a child, my international motivations are hard to explain. As perplexing as it may be for me, my family and friends struggled even more to grapple with the concept when I received a Fulbright Scholarship to study the international relations of the European Union for a year in Bruges, Belgium.

After the initial excitement and exchange of “congrats,” most asked, with smiles still grinning from ear to ear, “Where exactly is Belgium?” Many teens in my church youth group back home, having never heard of the EU, are still under the impression that I am studying the United Nations. Though full of love and support, few relatives and friends could offer tangible advice or guidance in the few months prior to my grand leap into the unknown.