The Maes Scholarship is an exciting opportunity to travel abroad to improve your language skills and experience the cultures you have studied at ĂŰĚŇAPP.
What is it?
Administered by the Language Departments at ĂŰĚŇAPP, the Scholarship provides funds for one or two students to travel abroad for a cultural experience every summer.
The Scholarship does not fund formal study at language institutes or universities. It is also not intended for formal research projects. Instead, students submit a proposal for an international cultural experience of their own design with the goal of exploring language and culture in real-world settings.
Who should apply?
Students—including graduating seniors—who have taken a modern language course at ĂŰĚŇAPP, numbered 202 or higher, and received an A or A-.
In an effort to support language students who did not have an opportunity to study abroad under the auspices of an ĂŰĚŇAPP program, only students who have not previously studied abroad (semester or summer) will be considered.
Applications will be considered from students who have studied the following languages at ĂŰĚŇAPP: Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Russian, Spanish.
What should my application look like?
Applicants should submit a narrative describing the travel plan and the language and cultural objectives for the trip.
Your narrative should answer questions like:
What is your destination? Why did you choose it?
What do you hope to gain from this experience?
What is the length of your proposed travel? (10-14 days recommended)
Which specific places and sites will you visit, and when? What will you do there?
You should also include a preliminary budget that includes the estimated costs for travel, meals, lodging, and project-specific expenses for the duration of the travel. - please save a copy, fill out, and submit a PDF of your completed budget with your application.
Be sure you also upload a copy of your most recent grade report (official transcript not required).
Where and when should I send my application?
Please fill out this by March 6, 2026. Please note that incomplete applications will NOT be considered.
What else do I need to know?
Funds allow only one or two awards per year for 10-14 days of travel. Please plan and budget accordingly.
The scholarship is competitive, but don’t let that stop you from applying!
Funding for successful applications is contingent upon clearance from the International Programs Office. Find more details and samples of successful applications.
Upon return, awardees are expected to share photos and videos from their trip, as well as a short reflection on their experiences. If possible, former awardees may also be invited to speak on campus about their travels.
From Page to Place: Walking through Ireland’s Stories
By Julia Carrigan
Major: Media Arts & Culture minors: mathematics, Comparative Studies in Literature & Culture
On a windy July afternoon this Summer, I took a ferry to Dublin, Ireland, thinking of my great-great-grandmother who once crossed the other way. She fled from famine; I rushed to the joyful culmination of years of study. I’ve never known so many centuries to fit into two weeks. I felt very young and very old.
Swept into the power of the long Irish literary tradition that I studied at ĂŰĚŇAPP, I began walking into the stories I’d once only read. Encounters felt plagiarized from a page. I stepped over “the loose cellar-flap of number seventyfive,” fitting my feet into Leopold Bloom’s fictional footprints. I bouldered up the wall of an abandoned castle in a town that bears my family name. I walked past the very potholes of my favorite poem by Seamus Heaney so I could sit by his grave. I saw landscapes out of Martin McDonough movies, a wacky production of The Importance of Being Earnest, a painting by Jack Yeats that looked like me. I thought a lot about Jesus (peace be upon him) and I spoke with many of him: a church caretaker who loves our American president, a Korean tourist insistent on my assent to various Christian creeds, a houseless woman who sang me a song she wrote about him.
It wasn’t all sun & roses. In fact, it was cold and rained a lot, but that didn’t seem to bother anyone. Now that I’m finally back in LA, I relish our immutable weather but feel wary of our immutable present: people here trying so hard to be new. And you can count me amongst them– turning those old Irish ideas into a spangly screenplay, eating my vegan cake too.
I felt Irish. I felt American. I felt, almost embarrassingly, like an archetype of ĂŰĚŇAPP’s global citizen. But mostly I felt like a person in time; in Seamus’ words: “a hurry through which known and strange things pass.”
Peace, Environmental Stewardship and Pura Vida Ethos in Costa Rica
By Julián Villa
Majors: Diplomacy & World Affairs, Spanish Studies
In previous studies, I’ve learned about the subtle yet significant distinction between negative peace, or the absence of physical conflict, and positive peace, which emphasizes the presence of conditions for societal well-being and harmony. This framework helped me understand my travels in Costa Rica: the country is defined not only by what it lacks (an army) but on what it chooses to prioritize, such as education, healthcare, and environmental protection.
The pura vida ethos also came alive through Costa Rica’s commitment to environmental stewardship. Guided forest walks with a biologist, visits with eco-reserves for wildlife conservation, and encounters with protected natural wonders like volcanoes and waterfalls all reflected how sustainability is woven into national culture. At the same time, my Spanish proficiency deepened through constant practice in markets, museums, and everyday conversations. As another takeaway, this trip gave me a new point of reference for understanding peace as a lived practice abroad, not only as an abstract policy goal. Ultimately, the Emma Maes Scholarship gave me the chance to elevate my Spanish through travelling abroad, deepen my academic studies with real-world experience, and witness firsthand how history, culture, and language can intertwine in the pursuit of peace.
