WKU News

Samuel Gorecki (WKU/MHC ’24), a native of southside Chicago suburbs, and a most recently an alumnus of Western Kentucky University is preparing to embark on his 5^th year capstone experience in southeast Asia as part of Chinese Flagship Program requirements. His journey into this capstone year is supported by the David L. Boren Scholarship – a $25,000 scholarship to support language-focused study abroad during the 2024-2025 academic year. Samuel is one of seven Boren Scholars from the most recent award cycle in spring 2024; all seven recipients from this award cycle are graduates of the Chinese Flagship Program (CFP) at WKU.  

Initially, Samuel and his family were exploring smaller faith-based institutions nearer to the true heart of the Midwest region, but “none had a program like Flagship at WKU” and after taking two years of Chinese language in high school, he wanted to continue to study Chinese. “I was like panicking… I didn’t know where I was going, and we finally came to visit WKU in early March 2020… so I was lucky to tour the campus before everything shut down.”

It was the federal job opportunities available to him with CFP that sparked his interest, explaining that “[CFP is a] good gateway into a career in federal service. Since that program is funded by the government, they're really trying to invest in the students who are in this program, to later on serve in the government as a federal service person. And a career like that really sparked my interest.” WKU’s scholarship package was also generous which reduced Samuel’s concerns about affording a university education as an out of state student.

While Samuel’s first year in Fall 2020 “was tough” given the degree of social distancing restrictions on campus and online and hybrid courses, he fondly recalled that “…despite that, I think I was still able to make like a lot of good connections. One of the defining things with freshman year, Minton Hall, I know a lot of people are like ‘Minton Hall is old’ but the experience you get in the hall is crazy, like I do anything to go and re-experience it again, and the people I met in the community, it was just perfect to me.”

In addition to the stress of the pandemic, the demands of the CFP program required Samuel to develop immaculate time management and study habits. In his first three years in the program, he had “five days of instruction, Monday through Friday, that’s about 6 hours a week, and on top of that we have tutoring, which is a one-on-one tutoring to really hone in on your language skills, and that was about 8 hours per week.”

Although course meeting frequency decreases by junior and senior year (if you follow the program pathway), Samuel had to make a few alterations due to COVID’s impact on the 10-week summer language bootcamp at Indiana University (IU) that CFP participants normally partake in after their freshman year.

“It was an all online, summer intensive language boot camp. And as appealing as that sounds, freshmen me did not want to do that. And I’d rather work to make money to kind of like afford some of the expenses of college. So at the time, that's kind of that was kind of my thought process. But looking back at it, I probably should have done the program.”

Students who complete the IU bootcamp with demonstrated proficiency can advance into 300-level language study in CFP at WKU in their sophomore year rather than waiting until their junior year thereby creating breathing room in their junior and senior year to focus on self-study and fewer class meetings. While Samuel’s decision could have posed a hiccup for his plans, he was undeterred and doubled down on his studying and his course load to maintain progress within CFP with his cohort.

Among the senior year requirements for CFP before their 5^th year abroad experience, students are expected to prepare for “capstone testing and these are tests that define what level of proficiency you’re at and for the capstone year you have to prepare a certain like a certain group of tasks, like you had to prepare a Chinese resume a cover letter and we had to prepare a mock interview that we would send to a potential employer.”

Amid this senior year activity, Samuel caught up with the Office of Scholar Development (OSD) since he had worked with them previously (secured a scholarship with their assistance to study abroad in Taiwan in summer of 2023) and he learned of the Boren Scholarship during a class presentation facilitated by them. He had no hesitations to pursue this award given the level of support he experienced from OSD with his previous applications.

He credited their support in winning the award explaining that “because with their experience and everything, they really know how to just like guide you in the direction of what they [selection committees] want to hear and what is going to make you a good candidate. And I think through the success they've had in the past, they were really able to just to pass that knowledge onto this year's applicants. And I think that's kind of why we saw like, such a great amount of success within our cohort this year.”

You may think that intensity of CFP would have prevented Samuel from participating in campus life, but in addition to being a member of the Mahurin Honors College (all CFP participants are also MHC students), he served as resident advisor his sophomore year in Minton Hall where “I was able to meet a lot of the honors kids, but not in my grade, it was a grade below. But I still think that was like, a really good way to like meet people and just kind of establish a connection with like, a lot of students and like a similar community.” He was also the president in the ‘23-‘24 academic year of the Asian-American Association on campus.

As he prepares for his 5^th year capstone abroad, he reflected on the moment when he learned that he, and two of his closest CFP peers, were recipients of the scholarship, “since freshman year that’s the thing you talk about, it's almost like a myth. Is it really real? Is it possible? To see my friends work their way up, persist through these four years of college, no matter how difficult it was, they just kept going. And to see them reach that culminating goal and achieve what they've been working for the past four years was just touching, and I'm super proud of them. And I'm super happy we were able to experience that together.”

Samuel’s journey is a testament to the power of resilience, supportive networks, and the opportunities provided by programs like CFP and OSD. As he embarks on his capstone year abroad, his achievements reflect his hard work and the collaborative efforts of his peers and mentors.