Iana Garcia Awarded Gilman International Scholarship

VASCI student, Iana Garcia has been awarded a Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

The Gilman Program of international exchange is intended to better prepare students to thrive in the global economy and interdependent world.  The U.S. Department of State sponsors and oversees the Gilman Program as part of its effort to expand the number of Americans studying and interning abroad, thereby gaining skills that are critical to our national security and prosperity.

This highly competitive scholarship is being offered to Iana to study abroad in Spain. In addition to being a Pre-Veterinary Science major Iana is also a Spanish major.  She shares, “the Salamanca Spain program is one of the University of Massachusetts Amherst most popular programs in the Spanish department. It allows students to take up to 9 credits of Spanish classes and live in one of the most historic parts of Spain. While looking into the program I visited one of the information sessions the Spanish Department provides and heard the testimonies of past students in the program. Each of these students stated how the Salamanca trip was truly life changing for them and noted the diverse classes available to choose from. They also shared that by being in a Spanish speaking country you quickly learn how to speak Spanish correctly and how to adapt in foreign social settings.”  

Gilman scholarship recipients are required to carry out a Follow-on Service Project upon their return to the U.S. which promotes the Gilman Program and international education on the scholarship recipient’s home campus and/or in their community. The follow-on service project Iana created is intended to tackle the lack of diversity of students participating in studying abroad programs. Iana notes, “Ambassadors for study abroad programs are often not people of color. In brochures for study abroad there is often a lack of diversity in the pictures advertised. This is discouraging to students of color and causes a belief that people of color are not meant to be a part of these opportunities. Even when a student is to push past this and start to apply, they quickly come to learn that if they are a low-income student, affording studying abroad seems impossible. My project intends to tackle this divide and reach out to the several students of color groups on campus to set up potential talks on how studying abroad is possible for them. I personally am a part of UMass Amherst Center for Multicultural Student Success program and plan on giving an information seminar after my study abroad trip to explain why this experience is necessary to be successful in future goals.”

Iana shares that she chose UMass because of the diversity found at the college. She observes, “not only is there a diversity in the student body but also in what UMass offers. As a low-income first-generation student of color, I came into UMass as a pre-med major since that was the only college career I knew, but I wanted to make sure that the college I chose had a diverse array of study programs in order to allow me to explore more than what I knew. Now as a rising senior, I am grateful to have chosen UMass as my undergraduate college of choice because I would have never have known about the Veterinary and Animal Science Department nor have had the opportunity to be an undergraduate researcher in the Tremblay lab as well.”

Iana plans to apply to a DVM/PhD program after graduation to study molecular biology or developmental biology. She hopes to be the first person in her family to not have only received an undergraduate degree but also a doctorate.