Senior wins Luce award to study in Asia

If you had told Trinity senior Kristin Rechberger last year that she would spend her first 12 months after graduation in South Korea, she never would have believed you.

But a year and a Luce Scholarship later, Rechberger is preparing to do just that. Rechberger was recently named one of 18 recipients nationwide of the scholarship, which covers expenses for a year of working and traveling in East Asia.

Selection of scholarship winners is based primarily on "high potential for accomplishment in fields unrelated to Asian specialties upon returning to the United States," according to the application bulletin. Scholarship recipients, who must be 30 years or younger, are not allowed to enroll in any educational institution while in Asia and do not receive academic credit for any work performed there. Rather, candidates create individual internship programs tailored to their career goals.

"It's not a graduate scholarship, but an experiential one," explained Rechberger, a public policy studies major who cofounded PeerNet and was a participant in the 1993 Women and Leadership National Conference.

Rechberger said she knows very little about Asia or Asian culture. Luckily, such knowledge is not a requirement for the Luce -- in fact, a lack of knowledge is rather expected.

"It's just to have this Asian experience, to try something and experience someplace you haven't before," Rechberger said.

In fact, Rechberger said Asian culture was one area she shied away from experiencing in the past.

"I had taken Russian, German and French, but nothing Asian," she said. "I stayed away from it because it was so different and seemed difficult because of that. But then I realized that I wanted something different for my first year out of college."