Scholarship / Grandmother and Dominican Republic - my application for Global Ugrad [2]

The Global UGRADProgram is for young leaders committed to serving their home communities.

Why would you be a great participant in the Global UGRAD Program?

My grandmother learned to write her name so my mother could go to school and even when she couldn't finish it, she knew the great importance this simple action had for her. Since then, these two women have fought by my side to get me an education and now I am on the path to becoming the first woman in my family to be a University graduate and I want to do the same for other girls in my country.

I aim to better understand American culture and history. I plan to engage not only with my fellow program peers but also with the locals. I believe that you can get to know a place through meaningful conversation with its people, always with an open mind and appreciation for what they share with you. Tara Westover said that Education "is less about knowing more than someone and maybe more about knowing someone who is not like you", and those words have since stayed with me. I'm always eager to learn and teach which is why I consider myself to be a great choice.

I chose my field of major as a result of my love for languages and words and the power they hold. In this globalized world in which English has become the universal language of communication across countries, a lot of young people that come from low-income households are missing academic and professional opportunities in the Dominican Republic as a result of lacking these skills, and after witnessing that situation as someone who studied in public schools, I decided to start offering English tutoring to girls from my community and once I week we gather on virtual conferences where I teach them the basics of the language.

My main goal is to be an agent of change in the less privileged communities of my country, with a special focus on language learning as an instrument of personal and academic improvement, through which girls can gain the confidence to believe that they can dream as high as they want and achieve it.

I've had the opportunity to take online free courses from institutions that offer a great catalog mainly in English such as creative writing or International Women's health and I want other young people that see these experiences as something out of their reach to know that is something attainable just as it has been for me with my only tools being my English knowledge and curiosity.

In the Dominican Republic, we are taught American English, and having the possibility to learn from native professors will help me improve my teaching-learning skills in the language. As a Global Ugrad scholar, I will have the opportunity to observe and experiment with the variety of methods used to teach and how American students work and interact with each other. Furthermore, I'm going to use my time in the USA to teach people that might not know my country, the uniqueness of our idiosyncrasy. I want to share with them what makes my country so special and learn as well about theirs because one thing I believe is that no matter how many differences we may have as nations, we are equal beings sharing one big world.