Chinese scholarship for two NYUAD students
Highly selective programme designed to cultivate leaders
abu dhabi — Olivia Bergen and Veronica Houk, two students from the New York University - Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), are on their way to become world leaders. The two have just been offered the Yenching scholarship at the Yenching Academy of Peking University in China.
This is an elite postgraduate highly selective, fully funded global fellowship programme, designed to cultivate leaders who will advocate for global progress.
“That two young people educated by the NYUAD have been selected as Yenching Scholars — a programme focused on connecting the world with China — underscores their abilities,” said Kyle Farley, NYUAD Dean of Students.
Olivia Bergen graduated from NYUAD in 2015 with a major in Political Science and a minor in East Asian Studies. She is currently working as a Global Academic Fellow at New York University in Shanghai.
Veronica Houk is studying Literature with a minor in Art History at NYUAD and will graduate in May this year.
In the 2016-17 academic year beginning in September, both young women will join other outstanding graduates from around the world in an English language Master of China Studies programme.
Designed to promote interdisciplinary studies of contemporary China, the Yenching Academy of Peking University — China’s most prestigious institution of higher learning — underlines the value of thinking about its development from both Chinese and international perspectives.
Every year, 200 Yenching Scholars are chosen through a competitive selection process that seeks future global leaders. Most of them come from some of the world’s most prestigious universities – Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and now NYUAD.
“The NYUAD opened the world to me and taught me to invite people into decision-making in their communities. I look forward to studying Chinese governance and helping to build another exciting new programme as a Yenching Scholar next year,” said Bergen.
Her fellow scholar was equally overwhelmed by receiving the scholarship.
“I had the chance to meet some Yenching students, and similar to my peers in Abu Dhabi, their intelligence and proactivity is extraordinarily impressive, so I am very humbled to join next year’s class,” said Houk .