The Department of Theatre Arts & Dance is thrilled to announce, with pride, that Gabrielle Garcia, a junior Musical Theatre major with a minor in Business Marketing, was selected as one of the recipients of the Gilman International Scholarship. The Gilman International Scholarship “is a prestigious and highly competitive scholarship exclusively for Pell Grant recipients to study abroad,” according to Wyatt Boykin, a Loyola Study Abroad Advisor. Garcia was awarded $4,500 out of the possible $5,000 offered by the Gilman International Scholarship to study abroad in Seoul, South Korea in the Fall 2021.
“I was super excited to find out I had received it and honestly was caught off guard because it had been awhile since I had applied,” said Garcia. “When I was notified, I was beyond thrilled to see I had got the scholarship.”
Garcia noted that she applied for the scholarship because it “helps open doors that may have been inaccessible or closed for students.” The scholarship specifies that students applying must be on the Pell Grant and encourages students going to non-traditional destinations to apply, according to the Loyola study abroad website. Garcia plans on studying at EWHA Woman's University in Seoul, South Korea, keeping in line with the scholarship’s encouraged destinations.
Garcia had been planning on studying abroad in Fall 2020, but travel restrictions caused by COVID-19 derailed her plans. “South Korea was one of the places in mind when considering study abroad, and after some thinking, studying, and beginning to learn the language I knew that was where I wanted to go,” she said. “I knew I wanted to go somewhere new and that would challenge me.”
Should travel restrictions lessen by the Fall of 2021, Garcia will be starting her senior year of college at EWHA Woman's University in Seoul.