• National honors recognize Baylor students’ efforts

    Melissa YeakleyAs the end of the spring semester nears (finals start tomorrow!), it seems I get news of another student winning an award almost every day. Here’s just a sampling:

    Senior Melissa Yeakley (pictured at right) has received a Critical Language Scholarship to study in China this summer as part of the U.S. government’s National Security Language Initiative. (You might remember that we covered three Bears last year who earned this same scholarship to study in Russia.) Yeakley, an international studies major, will spend the summer studying intermediate Chinese at Soochow University; she hopes to use those skills down the road through a career with the State Department as a foreign service officer or political analyst.

    Senior Juan Yaquian was awarded a highly competitive Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation to pursue graduate work at Berkeley. (Yaquian has an amazing life story that is certainly worth reading.) At Berkeley, he will work towards his doctorate studying high frequency analog circuitry with applications towards wireless communication.

    Perhaps we should have led with Krystal Pree’s honor, as “first” is something of a theme in her life. She was the first member of her family to earn a college degree, graduating first in her school’s class. A first-year Baylor graduate school student, Pree is now the first Bear to be accepted into the United States Geological Survey’s Student Career Employment Program. The program integrates a student’s studies into federal work experience and offers a good chance to convert that into a full-time job after graduation.

    Sic ’em, Baylor students!