National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and provides merit-based scholarships for high school students for summer and academic immersion programs. The program prepares American students to be leaders in a global world. The NSLI-Y wants to ensure that Americans have the necessary linguistic skills and cultural knowledge to promote international dialogue and support American engagement abroad.

The NSLI-Y scholarship selection process is highly competitive. Applicants have to provide an official school transcript, teacher recommendations, language assessments, four essays and go through interviews with NSLI-Y.

Junior Christine Nguyen won one of the 2013-2014 NSLI-Y Scholarships for the summer Chinese in China Program. She will study Chinese language and culture in Changchun, Nanjing, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Xian for six to eight weeks with all expenses paid by the program.

“I am very excited for this opportunity to study in China. I worked very hard to gain this scholarship and am so grateful that I was chosen. It is such an honor to have been selected from this very competitive program. It has always been a aspiration of mine to study in a foreign country and now it is finally a reality” said, Nguyen.