Article Archives

Between late next month, when Flinn Scholarship applications go live, and the middle of next May, when we announce the Class of 2011, one of the most frequently asked questions that Foundation staff will receive is:

"So, what is the Flinn Scholarship worth?"

Sometimes, I can just about see the wheels turning in an applicant or parent's mind as I rattle off what the award provides--an allotment for study and travel abroad, funding for room and board, the value of eight semesters of tuition provided by the university. Add it up, and you have a sum near $90,000.

People tend to hear that number in a couple of different ways.

For some people (this was me in the fall of 1993), it sounds almost like the Powerball jackpot, the kind of largess that would change one's life. I was one of those applicants for whom it was either win the Flinn Scholarship or scrape together work-study, a partial scholarship, tons of loans, and still be living pretty frugally--definitely lacking the resources for study abroad, for example.

For other people, the monetary benefit of the scholarship sounds, well, small. I've quoted a figure that's almost insignificant. Over the course of a year or two of researching universities, they've gotten used to the idea of Ivy League sticker prices, to the extent that $200,000 for tuition alone has started to sound normal.

In either case, though, if I answer that question--"What is the Flinn Scholarship worth?"--by talking about money, I've given an answer that isn't really accurate. The Flinn Scholarship doesn't have that much to do with money.

I say that while fully aware of how beneficial it was to not have money worries as an undergraduate. My options expanded dramatically. My capacity to concentrate my energy on my studies, on creative pursuits, on campus activities, on travel--all of that was magnified tenfold by the modest financial freedom that the scholarship permitted me.

But still, the Flinn Scholarship doesn't have that much to do with money. I think this is closer to what it means:

A few weeks ago, I was emailing back and forth with a Scholar alum who was in town to visit family for the weekend. The alum told me that something wasn't right at home; the alum's father was showing indications of some kind of neurological problem. It wasn't an acute event like a stroke, but it had apparently been worsening rapidly over the course of several weeks. The alum, a young doctor, was growing worried.

Because I was about to leave on vacation, I didn't learn for more than a week what happened. The alum ended up taking the father to the emergency room at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center the next day. Within 48 hours, he was in surgery at Barrow Neurological Institute to have multiple brain tumors removed.

Having recently lost my own father to a long struggle with cancer, I understood some of what the alum was experiencing. Still, there was really very little I could do to help. But I knew who could. I wrote the alum another email:

We have a Scholar alum who's the medical director of neurorehabilitation at Barrow. Christina Kwasnica has stayed in close contact with the Foundation, and I'm sure she would be receptive if you run in to any obstacles in the next little while. I'd be happy to put you in touch with her.

Tina Kwasnica ('87), a graduate of Mesa Dobson High School, had returned to Arizona after med school at Northwestern University, and had soon enough assumed important clinical leadership roles at Barrow. Earlier this year, Phoenix Magazine called Tina (pictured on the right) one of metro Phoenix's five "most innovative physicians who are taking patient care into the next frontier."

The alum wrote me back late that night:

Ironically, Dr. Kwasnica is my dad's neurorehab doc and I just got off of the phone with her. I love the Flinn family. Now I am much more reassured, even though I haven't even met her in person, that my dad is getting terrific care. Isn't that funny?

How do you quantify the value of gaining a second family?  I can't. And that's why, when I meet an applicant or a parent, it can be so hard to answer their questions satisfactorily.

If I have enough time, I end up resorting to stories like this one. There are more of them, many more, stories that just about any current or alumni Flinn Scholar could tell of what the Flinn scholarship is really worth.

Photo by flickr user nathangibbs

Each summer the Flinn Scholars Program takes an entire class of Scholars to Budapest, Hungary, and neighboring Romania for a three-week seminar on the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe. Here’s a day-by-day account.

Nesima Aberra ('09)

Today was by far the most bittersweet day out of the entire Central European seminar. Bittersweet, because it was the most fun and engaging (in my opinion), while it meant we are near the end of the trip and will soon be leaving Hungary, our home away from home.

In the morning after eating breakfast, we took the metro to Graphisoft Park, an amazing park akin to Silicon Valley that hosts 40 companies from Microsoft to SAP and Servier. The park was very clean and well kept with elements of whimsical creativity and architecture that one would only expect to see around such talented designers. One sculpture that impressed us all was a giant Rubix cube on the lawn. We learned earlier in the trip that the Rubix cube was created by a Hungarian, so it was an obvious symbol of the country’s pride in their scientific and mathematical development.

Meeting Gabor Bajor, the entrepreneur who founded the Graphisoft company, the park and the Aquincum Institute of Technology was an amazing experience. Despite not being a business or science major, I was fascinated by his story of going from a physics major during the Communist-era Hungary to becoming a successful owner of a leading software firm.

Bajor craved bettering himself and bettering those around him, something that was looked down upon at his workplace under the Communist-style economy. His passion to compete and win made him realize that a free market with private ownership would be the most effective. As he said in his lecture, his goal was to “find people better than the owner.” Luckily, once private firms were legal in Hungary, Bajor jumped at the opportunity.

Bajor’s design company was cutting edge and had a competitive advantage because they were the first to do 3D modeling on PCs. This was easier and cheaper and would allow him to compete in the global market. His plan failed to garner attention from large oil companies and big corporations because they didn’t trust the idea, but Bajor said that architects were the perfect customers, because they are generally poorer and were happy to find such an affordable product.

This kind of business sense really connected with all of us and made me really admire Bajor’s passion for understanding his customers, paying attention to their mistakes and creating a product that serves the market best. Now that he has retired from Graphisoft, Bajor heads the Aquincum Institute of Techonology, which he hopes will train software engineers from abroad and make the school a competitor with American universities. According to Bajor, the 21st century is the century of the knowledge-based economy, so education is where his business mind is focused.

After listening to such a genius, we all had lots to talk about as we chowed down on a delicious pizza lunch in the Graphisoft cafeteria. We got to experience more creativity at the Ady Museum, dedicated to the great Hungarian poet Endre Ady. I had never heard of him before, but once reading through his poems with the guidance of our lecturer, Geza Kallay, I understood why he was so revered.

t was fun to analyze the poetry and discuss them with each other and then try our hand at writing our own poems at the Central Coffee House. Strangely, we had another lunch there, which was meant to be a very very early dinner since we would be later attending a ballet in the evening.  Somehow we managed to finish our meal, along with dessert and coffee, as we listened to each other’s hilarious and entertaining amateur poetry.

We had a bit of free time to get ready before the ballet in the evening, but most of us went back to get dressed up since it would be a fancy event. The ballet was nothing short of amazing. We were all given box seats, which gave us not only a great view of the stage but also an air of prestige that is quite uncommon for the average college student.

There were five different performances, but unanimously, the group loved the final performance, entitled Whirling, which featured beautifully executed choreography, hauntingly melancholy music and even rain. The audience was so into the ballet that the applause lasted for over 5 minutes and compelled the dancers to bow over and over again and even come out in front of the curtains once they were already drawn. This was very amusing to my friends and I, because it seemed a tad excessive, but nonetheless, the dancers certainly deserved it after such quality work.

The night ended with ice-cream sundaes at a café outside the opera house and a viewing of the France vs. Mexico soccer game. After such an eventful day experiencing various parts of Hungarian talents, I went to bed quite inspired by the level of cultural immersion we had but also sad that it is almost over.

Each summer the Flinn Scholars Program takes an entire class of Scholars to Budapest, Hungary, and neighboring Romania for a three-week seminar on the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe. Here’s a day-by-day account.

Dawn Cole ('09)

Today was our last day in Cluj, and everyone was feeling a little gloomy as we began to realize that our time together was quickly coming to an end. Add to that the exhaustion and sadness from the previous night–it was Katherine’s last night with us, after all--and we were a shabby looking group I am sure.

The talk on environmental issues was unfortunately cancelled, but the final question-and-answer session with Zoltan proved to be a very good wrap-up of what we encountered in Romania. I am still amazed by people’s attitudes when they talk about the past--even as Zoltan described the oppression and fear of his childhood, he expressed no sense of need for revenge or retribution. It's as if the people are just tired after so many years of suffering and would rather save the energy to try to improve things than complain about things that cannot be changed. I really appreciate this because, although it is so logical, I personally have not encountered this mentality very often.

During the several hours of free time in the afternoon, Laurel and I visited the Botanical Gardens.  An explosion of 600 varieties of roses separated the present from the past as we left the crowded and noisy street and entered a full rain forest. I felt as though I was back in Costa Rica as we wandered through this temporal oasis. We also found statues of Ceres, the god of grain and cereals, keeping watch over traditional peasant gardens from the Roman age.

Zoltan told me later that much of the nearby Romanian countryside used to be covered by similar forest vegetation, but with the expansion and industrialization of cities, much of it was lost. It is hard to imagine that such serenity once existed in those now-hectic spaces stained by years of human inhabitance.

We walked through the cemetery on our way back to the city, and we took time to notice the birth and death dates. When I think of a cemetery, I have the somewhat “romantic” idea that the people buried there represent the “everyman" who worked and suffered alongside everyone else (I guess any concept of someone being “normal” is somewhat romantic in and of itself, but still).  But upon reflection, I realized that with so many people and so little space, and the size and spectacle of the headstones, these were no ordinary men and women.  They represented the elite, the well-connected, and the wealthy.

And again, pardon the pun, even here there is buried so much history. In one place we saw a set of at least eight graves sharing the same name. As we looked closer, we saw that they were all brothers, born in 1916, 1918, 1919, 1921… and they all shared the same fate, dying in 1944, 1945. Of the eight, only one--the sister--was spared. She still lives today, her gravestone just sitting there waiting to be finished.   

For me, this day just showed that the history of this place is everywhere--you just have to look a little closer to discover the story. It all makes me wonder--how aware are people living in these ancient cities of the history of the places that surround them? Does their knowledge of the past increase their sense of nationalism, or are they like the many Arizonans who have never visited the wonder of the world that sits in their backyard (the Grand Canyon)?  How much of their identity as a Hungarian or Romanian is tied to the physical infrastructure and how much is simply rooted in the culture of the people that surround them?  Do Hungarians miss their beloved land lost in the Treaty of Treanon with such passion because they lost those physical monuments that embody the past, or because of the lifestyles and peoples those lands supported?   And finally, just as the forests were transformed first to agricultural lands and then to cities, what will these cities eventually become? How will the complex histories of these lands shape their future?

Each summer the Flinn Scholars Program takes an entire class of Scholars to Budapest, Hungary, and neighboring Romania for a three-week seminar on the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe. Here’s a day-by-day account.

Matt Rolland ('05)

Days up and down they come
like rain on a conga drum
Forget most, remember some,
oh, but don't turn none away
Everything is not enough
Nothing is too much to bear
Where you've been is good and gone
All you keep is the getting there

-Townes Van Zandt, “To Live is to Fly”

These lyrics were floating in my mind as we left our cabins in Targu Mures. What a wonderful day and night it had been. The bonfire smoke clinging to my skin, the taste of fire-baked apples on my lips, memories of late-night philosophizing and cafeteria sing-alongs in my mind. We were all slow to let June 12 go. But as Townes sang, “where you've been is good and gone.” It was time to look ahead to more adventures further into Transylvania.

Sunday, June 13th saw us rising early for breakfast and a bleary-eyed bus trip. The drive to Torocko, called “Rimitea” in Hungarian, was a bumpy and quiet ride except for the occasional snore. By the time we arrived mid-afternoon, the group was ready for some movement. Despite the oppressive heat, a volleyball game was quickly struck up behind our cabins.

But not 30 minutes later, already overheated, we decided to head to the cool waters of the babbling creek. We threw off our shoes and cooled our toes in the frigid water. The adventurous rolled up their pants and waded to the deeper area of the stream. I say adventurous because wading quickly transitioned into playful shoving, which then turned into light splashing and soon morphed into a full-blown water fight. No one was the loser during the hot Romanian summer day.

Soaked and chilled, we oozed our way to the cafeteria hall for lunch and a lecture. Lunch included a new dish for our palettes: bean soup with sour cream. While the food in Targu Mures presented new experiences in general – pink sausages, white bean soups, sour cabbage – it was good to have our food comfort levels challenged.

After lunch, our Romanian guide, Zoltan Soos, gave a lecture on 'Modern Romania'. Zoltan provided a helpful historical perspective to understanding Romania as a confluence of many empires and cultures; Byzantine, Turkish, Russian, and Hungarian powers had all at some point controlled all or part of what we call “Romania.” Providing a new perspective on ethnic relations, Zoltan pointed out that ethnically homogeneous nations are a relatively modern phenomenon. During the Medieval period, empires usually included ten or twelve ethnic groups. Ethnically charged nationalism is a consequence of the French Revolution and the events of the 19th century.

In addition to being an ethnically complex country, Romania is a country in political and economy transition. Zoltan emphasized that even though modern Romania is a member of the EU, it is a weak and centralized economy. With the highest number of police, army, and secret-service employees, per capita, of any country in Europe (40% of Romanian public expenditure), the Romanian public sector is bound for budgetary problems in the same way that Greece and Spain have suffered during the last year. The government has announced an anticipated 25% reduction in government employee salaries. Watching Romania's response to this budget shortfall will be an interesting mirror to how we are dealing with our own budget problems in Arizona.

The presentation was interrupted by deafening claps of thunder. Heavy drops of rain began to pound the pavement outside the cafeteria. The wind howled through the lace window curtains, like rain on a conga drum. Crowded around like desert rats at a puddle, we stared out the windows and stuck our hands into the rain. Three Flinns even dashed outside to drench themselves in the deluge. With more black clouds on the horizon, our hike to the mountains had to be canceled.

Not to be deterred, the Flinns found a way to make the afternoon memorable. I looked around after lunch, frustrated by the rain. What I saw lifted my spirits as a chaperone. Everyone was playing rain volleyball, reading, playing cards under the ramada, taking group pictures. I smiled, it was almost as if the rain had been a planned activity. If there is one thing this class does really well it is to make the most of any situation, together. Forget most, remember some, oh, but don't turn none away.

When the rain subsided an hour later, we walked the mile into town. Walking through the cobblestone streets, admiring the towering cliffs, the village was a destination unto itself. After the sky continued to clear a bit, about half of the students, myself, Anne Marie, and our two Romanian guides, Zoltan and Unige, decided to hike to a castle more accessible than the mountain top. A cool wind blowing, the mile to the trailhead passed quickly. As we began to ascend the gravel trail, our spirits were soaring. High up on the hill, we could see a silhouette of a crumbling castle. The sun peeked out from behind the clouds, pushing us onwards and upwards. We were soon sprinting up the ridgeline, surrounded by wildflowers of purple and gold. Reaching the first plateau, we exchanged high fives all around and a few hollers ripped out from our chests, ringing out across the verdant hills. On the next hill over, a herd of white, brown and black cattle ambled over the crest, as small as specks of brown sugar and salt and pepper.

After a breather, we decided to push on to the castle. We picked our way carefully down the steep slope, Galen munching on clover and leading the way with Zoltan. The next hill would be the toughest. Heaving and dripping with sweat, we scrambled up the rocks, wondering how in the world the original inhabitants made a daily routine of this slope. After a tiring 20 minutes we emerged onto the grassy crown. I put my hand against the stone wall, dusted with age but still standing for all the world to see. What a view. I breathed in deeply, and then shouted down to the rest of the group to cheer them on. One, and then two, and then three. Gradually, all in the group pulled themselves up to the castle, panting and sweating, but beaming. Everything is not enough, Nothing is too much to bear.

While only half the group hiked that day to the castle, we carried the spirits of the group with us to the top: the spirit of camaraderie, the spirit of challenges met, and the spirit of making days worth remembering. And while words can convey the events, and pictures can paint the scene, each of our individual memories of that day are a souvenir that can never be given away. All you keep is the getting there.

We hiked home slowly, soaking in every turn of the village and moment with each other. Stopping for a bathroom break halfway, I looked up to see a word strung up in lights across the road: “Gonduzo.” I asked Unige what the word meant. She said that is was difficult to translate, but means loosely ”letting your worries go” and was a common word for celebrations. I liked that and repeated the word again. Gond?z?.

As we walked the final stretch towards the cabins, we linked together, arm-in-arm. Compelled by the day and the night, we let our voices ring into the air, “We are the champions....” That's exactly how we felt at that moment: champions, conquerers. What's more, we were excited to be sharing the night as friends and travelers. We were all smiling because, after a long hike, nothing could have been a better sight than to be greeted by our fellow travelers and the warm glow of a cafeteria where the accommodation staff had insisted on waiting for us to serve us up heaping servings of Romanian cabbage and chicken. 

Each summer the Flinn Scholars Program takes an entire class of Scholars to Budapest, Hungary, and neighboring Romania for a three-week seminar on the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe. Here’s a day-by-day account.

Lauren Johnston ('09)

Today we ended our homestays in Homorodszentpeter, a small Unitarian Hungarian “willage” in Transylvania, Romania. Probably the only words to describe this little niche of the world are “freaking awesome.” To put it a little more eloquently, this tiny village is an idyllic paradise, where each inch of architecture and décor and cuisine is marked by flawless craftsmanship and every cow knows how to get home on its own. The people take pride in their traditions, history, and handiwork.

After a pleasant morning of homemade breakfast and strolls around the hills and the dairy, we sat down with Reverend Kinga to talk about the issues that this village faces. She began with the formidable assertion that, “At some point, we must decide what we want really out of life,” Packed in this simple sentence are the deepest questions of morality and values that challenge not only Kinga’s evolving community but our own lives as well; especially at this junction after our first year away from home. Considering that our lives are so privileged with freedoms and essentially sheltered experiences, one can only imagine the depth of tackling this challenge in the midst of such harsh cultural and moral clashes.

With Romania’s recent entry into the EU, traditional communities have in some areas been forced to adopt the values and practices of Europe. Over the past 80 years, the small ethnic strongholds have had to cope with regime changes from monarchy, to communism, to a fledgling democracy. The sheer rapidity and juxtaposition of such richly opposing governments is enough to overwhelm any society that has succeeded in remaining rooted to its practices and morals for hundreds of years. The rhythm of life in the traditional cultural strongholds like Homorodszentpeter has been interrupted as harshly as a stanza from a Bela Bartok composition. While modernization has brought communities together through technology and education, Rev. Kinga pointed out that the most notable changes are pessimistic sentiments towards integration and the loss of cultural and economic stability. Cultural phenomena in the form of television and unsavory vice have overturned the community life as well.

With the constant air of change, Reverend Kinga holds to the wish that her congregation will remain faithful and devoted to the simple joys of an honest life. She hopes that her children will choose to stay in the village and work as farmers. As Matt Rolland mused, for a woman so educated and worldly, this is a rather unique sentiment. I interpreted this dream as a small blessing of hope that the next generation will come to understand where true happiness lies, and pursue a life centered around a deeper peace with the world. As we said our goodbyes in the village, Kinga charged us to find a balance between tradition and progress, and to always have hope that we may find happiness.

Each summer the Flinn Scholars Program takes an entire class of Scholars to Budapest, Hungary, and neighboring Romania for a three-week seminar on the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe. Here’s a day-by-day account.

Sachi Patel ('09)

Jam sessions complete with dancing, bracelet-making lessons from Dawn, story time about Hungarian history, and intermittant naps--all of this happened just on the bus ride from the hotel to our next stop, Hunedora Castle. One of the things I have most enjoyed about this trip is the other Scholars, since their diversity of talents and intelligence ensure that there is never a dull moment, even on a three-hour bus ride! It's safe to say that by the time we arrived at the castle, it had already felt like an entire day had gone by.

Once we reached the castle, our first priority was lunch, since Flinn and food are essentially interchangeable! Lunch consisted of sandwiches, chips, chocolate, and tons of fruit which excited us all since simple fruit (especially grapes!) has been a scarce commodity during this trip. After lunch, we played a game of soccer that turned into a game of keep-away. Despite miserably losing, I still had fun (since the mere act of playing a game on a castle wall can make you feel like a winner).

The actual tour of Hunedora Castle then ensued. Often I tend to fall into the illusion that the past could never live up to the world that we have created in the 20th century. The castle tour completely dispelled this illusion. Seeing the stolid and creative architecture of the castle that had been built in 1440 made me realize how brilliant the people who made it must have been to have created something so massive without modern tools.

Though the building was made without modern tools I could already see the effects of modern civilization on the building. The gift store was full of Hannah Montana perephanelia and other items that had no real relationship to the actual castle. The extent to which the castle had been modernized made me sad, since I suddenly became aware of how fragile the past is. If the modern century is already leaking into historical monuments, what will be this castle's fate in another hundred years?

Another short bus ride and we reached the hotel we were staying at for the night--Hotel Translyvania--which was located in Alba Iulia. The tour of Alba Iulia was probably one of my favorite parts of the day. This tour was full of visiting old Roman sites that had guards in dramatic costumes who guarded everything, including the grass. Every time one of us absentmindedly stepped on the grass or gravel, a whistle was blown at our entire group! One of the guards let us take pictures with him. When Hugh asked the guard to make the peace sign with him in a picture the guard, looking confused, pulled out his sword instead and let Hugh hold it during the picture; the 'peace' picture turned into a 'war' picture in less than a second!

During the tour we also saw a short exposition that highlighted the effects of car pollution on ancient limestone statues. For one of the first times I saw the tangible effects of our civilization on more ancient civilizations. The intricate statues had become dull and wore-out to the extent that it was not even clear what they had been in the first place. Statues and other things made out of limestone that had stood for hundreds of years had been ruined in half a century by us.

While the effects of us on beautiful buildings frightened me, another thing about the city frightened me as well. Alba Iulia had quite a few stray dogs that wandered around the city, and, since dogs top my list of fears, I was forced to put on a brave face and refrain myself from yelping every time I saw another dog.

After the tour we were given free time to eat dinner. I ate dinner at an Italian restaurant with some other Flinns. At the restaurant our verbal skills were put to a test as the waitress knew little, if any, English. Despite this, we managed to get the food we desired. Our day ended, as most days do, with a short gelato trip! Due to how common gelato shops in Hungary and Romania have been, many of us have become ice-cream addicts in the past few weeks! After the gelato fix we headed back to the hotel where we hung out and talked for a couple of hours before sleep got the best of us. The day, full of eye-opening events, fun moments, and gelato, had finally ended.

Each summer the Flinn Scholars Program takes an entire class of Scholars to Budapest, Hungary, and neighboring Romania for a three-week seminar on the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe. Here’s a day-by-day account.

Blake Thomson ('09)

The day began when I rolled over, grunted at the bright sunlight, and opened my eyes. I was more than slightly surprised to find myself in a genuine Mongolian Yurt next to a couple of groggy Hungarians. Soon after, I was listening to a lecture about competition in the international context given by a professor who had a stint at Stanford for her research. A few hours later I was watching two separate men with Ph.D.'s demonstrate how to manipulate lasers to perform different tasks at the microscopic level. Then I mailed a few postcards and ate gelato amidst a sea of people, hoping to escape the mercilessly hot sun's rays (by Hungarian standards, of course). Needless to say, it's been a good day. But let me explain...

Yesterday we spent the day at a horse ranch in the city of Szeged, where we currently are staying. While there, we had the opportunity to ride horses and practice archery (not at the same time, unfortunately) with a small group of Hungarian students. At night we slept in yurts -- somewhat portable tents used by nomads when traveling, of which two styles were offered: Kazakstakstani (that doesn't sound correct...) or Mongolian, and I slept in the latter.

Depending on how well-versed you are on the topic of yurts (you never know with Flinn kids...), you may or may not know that yurts are not necessarily famous for keeping sunlight out. This fact facilitated our waking up on time for an early breakfast, however bitterly. After a day of riding horses, shooting arrows, and "collecting" firewood (read: walking into the forest and helplessly dangling from tree branches until they broke off), I would describe our smell collectively as "not up to the standards of civilized society." I'll leave it at that.

Anyways, we were all dying for showers and were told we would have about 45 minutes to shower when we got back to our hotel. There were technically showers at the horse ranch but... well, let's just say that we were justified in electing not to use them. So we rushed through our breakfast of meat, bread and yogurt in order to get on the bus as quickly as possible to ensure sufficient time for showering. Galen remarked that this might be our first breakfast of this trip with no salami or unidentifiable sausages present. I replied that this was almost true, with the caveat that vegetarians still needed to be wary of the cheese; it was "bacon flavored," with bits of meat in it. Close enough.

We arrived back at the hotel about a half hour later and parted ways with the Hungarian students, rushing inside to get dibs on the shower. After enjoying a quick shower, we set off to get to our first lecture. The Tisza River separates the area where our hotel lies and the main downtown district of Szeged, so it is about a half hour walk, and a fairly scenic one at that.

Our first speaker of the day, Márta Fülöp, discussed competition in the academic context from an international perspective. She had done research in Hungary, the United States, Japan, and Canada, among others. The results of her work were fascinating. As it turns out, Americans generally view competition in a more positive light than Hungarians do. We also care a heck of a lot more about competitive sports than they do (not everyone can have the Suns, Diamondbacks, Coyotes, and Cardinals to represent their state...). Even more interesting was the fact that Hungarians tend to see competition as a somewhat dangerous reality, one that often leads to immorality and resentment.

The presented research showed that Hungarians emphasize beating out others when competing, rather than improving themselves, while the Japanese focus on self-improvement in competition. Hungarians also associated winning with negative feelings as well; namely, fear (fear) of loser's envy. We all had a hunch that the somewhat recent governance by socialism had something to do with it. Going from a socialist society in which employment is near 100% and no one really needs to compete for anything directly to a free-market economy in which getting the edge on others makes all the difference certainly isn't an overnight process. And it isn't without ramifications.

One final note about competition, a bit of a fun piece of trivia: Hungarians use the English word for "loser," but have their own word for "winner." Ideas as to the implications of not having a word for being a loser until us Americans "enlightened" them? You're welcome, Hungary. With that and the Lady Gaga music they play everywhere, I'd say they really owe us one.

Anyway, after the talk we went out to lunch at the nearby Brnoi étterem (the Hungarian word for restaurant). Can anyone guess what we had for lunch? At the time of my writing this, only 2 blog entries have been posted, and neither of them have mentioned this fact, so I don't feel like I am beating the subject to death: we had fried chicken with french fries and rice. Fried chicken and some form of potato seems to be either the quintessential Hungarian treat or the only safe bet with a group of 17 American teenagers. Either way, the gelato:fried chicken ratio in our diet seems to be getting exponentially larger by the day. I'm not complaining.

After lunch we had our second round of talks, this time at Szeged's Biological Research Institute, with a lecture focusing on biophysics. It was all a little over my head, but the basic premise was that lasers can be used to create very small things with great accuracy. I think. To be honest, as far as I was concerned, about 95% of what they showed us in their laboratory demonstrations was magic.

One researcher wrote the word "hello" on an infinitely small scale on a glass slide. Another researcher fashioned a microscopic 3D object with a different laser. We also were shown a fluorescent light that turned on and off seemingly by magic when it passed into a machine which emitted some kind of gas. I felt like one of the awe-inspired villagers at the beginning of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude, when the procession of foreigners with seemingly magical inventions (like ice) comes through town. I couldn't understand what they were doing, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Luckily, Derek happens to be interested in lasers and knows a lot about them (Flinn kids...) so there was no shortage of comprehensible questions, allowing the rest of us to avoid being put on the spot. All in all, a pretty solid set of lectures. And then free time ensued.

Free time began with a beeline to our (by "our" I literally mean all of us) favorite gelato spot for a scoop. Or three, depending on who you ask. Among the most popular flavors are the Ferrero Rocher, the vanilla, the karmell, and the very mysterious mint named "after eight." I think I can speak for all of us when I say that I'm not used to my mint gelato having menthol in it; we all reveled in the oddity, and I'd call that an excellent bonding opportunity if I ever saw one.

I then parted ways with the group, namely Michael by this point, and headed to the 24/7 internet cafe. Upon entering I found that I was not alone, as I was greeted by Ben, Sachi and Allison, and Galen soon stepped in as well. Although the Hungarian keyboards have the "z" and "y" keys switched, as well as hidden apostrophe and exclamation point keys, I nonetheless started my blog entry with a sense of adventure. After typing "verz" and "reallz," along with a "civiliyed," I got Ben to tell me how to change the keyboard to American-style so I could stop abusing the backspace key. I wimped out.

After catching up on email I headed back out to the gelato spot, called A Capella, which by now is our main meeting point. After milling around and eating yet another scoop of gelato, we decided to go out to dinner at a fish restaurant mentioned in our Lonely Planet guide. Michael, Emma, Nesima, Derek, Catherine and I all tried the fish, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Tisza River is filled with good eats.

We then headed out to meet up with other Flinns and Hungarian students at a nightclub, but seeing as it was about 11:30 P.M. and we have to be up at 7 tomorrow, we decided to head back instead. I gotta say, I don't regret that decision.

The opportunity to sleep in a bed in a hotel becomes pretty attractive after waking up to a roof made of felt and walls made of sticks (you read up yurts, didn't you?). So I suppose it'd be pretty responsible of me to go to bed early tonight and get a good night's rest. But I think I hear my fellow Flinns down the hall, and the laughter is so inviting, and it's not really so very late, and everyone is heading in different directions in the next few days and months and years, and after all, we're only here once... right?

Each summer the Flinn Scholars Program takes an entire class of Scholars to Budapest, Hungary, and neighboring Romania for a three-week seminar on the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe. Here’s a day-by-day account.

Ben Sanchez ('09)

Boldog születésnapot! As a child, I hated having a summer birthday since it meant I never could celebrate with my peers at school. The advantage, though, was having the privilege of celebrating my nineteenth birthday in Hungary. (The opening is Hungarian for Happy Birthday, if you hadn't already guessed).

The day began as most seem to begin: an extension of the night before. I had returned with part of the group to a place called Szimpla in the central part of Budapest. Szimpla is essentially a huge courtyard with has been converted into a social gathering. I really enjoyed Szimpla because it reminded me of a place that used to exist in Phoenix called The Monastery.

In fact, I have repeatedly been surprised at how many times I've been reminded of home in a place halfway around the world. I'm not saying I miss home, but there just seem to be a lot of things that people like and enjoy all around the world regardless of place and culture. Anyways, after spending a while at Szimpla, I continued with about half the group to a dance club on the banks of the Danube to continue the celebration. When the sun started to peek over the horizon we decided it was time we return to the hotel to get a couple hours of sleep before the next days activities.

Most days two hours of sleep leads to a rough morning. Luckily, we visited the Széchenyi Medicinal Thermal baths today. The Széchenyi baths were in the city park just north of our hotel and we met as a group at the entrance at nine. We first had a presentation from Ádám Ruszinkó, who worked with the Hungarian Office of Tourism and specialized in thermal-bath tourism. He described the prevalence of baths across the country and the culture associated with them. I was surprised at how integrated into their culture thermal baths are. There is a widespread belief in Hungary that thermal bathing is a major contributor to overall health and as such, many of the bath's services can be charged to an insurance company or prescribed by a medical doctor.

After the discussion on baths, we received a tour of the building and saw three large pools as well as 35 different thermal baths that had varying temperatures and mineral contents. We quickly moved to the baths when our tour ended. We tried pretty much all of the saunas and mineral baths as well as all of the pools in our two hours at the baths. It was extremely relaxing after a very late night. The baths were quite busy with mostly Hungarians, which reinforced what Mr. Ruszinkó had told us about how culturally important the baths were.

We began our journey to the last town we would visit in Hungary before Romania after a great morning. While the baths were relaxing, I was still really tired and slept the entire trip from Budapest to Szeged. We arrived in Szeged just before 6 pm and met our guide Panka. She gave us an informal tour of the city as we walked to the restaurant for our group dinner. Szeged, like Budapest, is a city on a river (but it sits on the Tisza rather the Danube). The city has a history of being flooded by a river and we could tell why: as we crossed the bridge over the river we saw that the rain from the last few days had caused the river to flood over a street that ran next to the river. The city has built defenses, so no actual buildings are damaged, but it was still interesting to see just the top few inches of a traffic sign.

We had dinner near the main pedestrian area of the city and the chaperones kindly surprised me with a cake at the end of dinner. While I was surprised by the cake, I was even more surprised that the entire group had at some point in the day learned how to sing Happy Birthday in Hungarian. I barely have time to sleep, but they have time to learn a song in Hungarian.

All in all, it was a great birthday. I didn't spend it with my family or at home, but I enjoyed every minute of and have enjoyed the opportunity to spend it with my Scholars class, whom I seem to get closer with every day.

Each summer the Flinn Scholars Program takes an entire class of Scholars to Budapest, Hungary, and neighboring Romania for a three-week seminar on the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe. Here’s a day-by-day account.

Galen Lamphere-Englund ('09)

A welcome sight greets our eyes this morning: the clouds have lifted, and the sun has decided to peek out around the edges of the grey sky. We peer, bleary with shortened sleep, and find that we are smiling.

Last night was spent in the Keszthely Castle, otherwise called the Festetics Palace. It is a massive building filled with beauty and lore, with a 100,000-volume library of rare works amassed by its former occupants. At the invitation of our hosts, we gained the use of the third-floor "smoking lounge" at night. Unlike the rest of the hardwood-paneled, ornate palace, the smoking room had been renovated in a bizarrely retro '70s style. Several of us spent the night playing cards and chasing one another around the guest wing in the former residence of Hungarian Counts. Perhaps their spirits appreciated our young company.

Today we leave the fantastic Palace for a journey through the Balaton national park. Winding roads and a few wrong turns, resulting in strange detours through quaint residences with sprawling gardens, eventually lead us into the green hills above the lake. Our white tour bus stops outside an preserved historic farm, nestled alongside homesteads and a steepled church.

Past the split rail fence and whitewashed houses, we are greeted by several rangers who proceed to lead us around past the "Hungarian Grey Cattle," which look identical to American longhorns, and deadly-adorable baby farm animals. Later, after sojourning on to several other villages, we are again led through meadows to beautiful rolling hills littered with "healing stones" and birdbath-sized reflecting pools.

The small white homes sprinkled amongst the hills opposite us and the new growth forest remind us that everything here has felt humanity's touch for many years. Reminders that civilization is thousands of years old in Hungary are everywhere, even in the seeming rural country. Yet, in spite of the human aspect, the sweeping vistas of Lake Balaton from the top of an ancient volcanic basalt hill seem to put all of our collectively small existences back into perspective.

After bidding farewell to the National Park, we found ourselves in a lakeside research arm of Hungary's University system. Our lecturer informed us about the limnological research which they have conducted in the extremely shallow, 3 meters at most, Lake Balaton over the past century.

After leaving the rather well-decorated research building, we found some quiet solitude on the lakeshore among the beautifully landscaped grounds. Soon after, we ventured up the hill to Tihany, perched on a picture perfect hill between lakes, crested by a grandiose Abbey. Wandering around the woods surrounding the town stirred up memories of similar places in the United States, places with the same plants and flowers, but lacking the thatched roofs and whitewashed walls of the villas in Tinany. Our lodging for the evening was in just such a house: two stories, with beautifully thatched roofs and curved windows overlooking a green courtyard.

Yet, as I lay down to sleep, I find that my thoughts are still dwelling on the Roma village visit several days ago. The captivating beauty of the people, richly happy despite their material poverty; the stunning kindness with which they greeted us; the smiles on each Roma child who ran alongside our inner youth. The pride of the houses, each one spotless and with dazzling flowers, and the flavorful feast prepared for our visit. The nationalist agenda pursued against these amazing people seems so foolish, yet it is a pattern used time and time against, across borders and time. The same stereotypes and prejudices have been used in the US against the Irish, the Chinese, and, today, the Hispanic immigrants. Why such othering persists is confounding.

But of equal universal appeal was the Roma boys' use of Capoiera. In the green grass, the energetic kids demonstrated perfect martial arts moves like Jengas, Banderas, and Ouefechadas. The Brazillian dance martial art, once used by repressed slaves, has found another home: in the movements of another repressed people, kindred spirits only separated by time and space. Reminders of universal humanity are everywhere.

Each summer the Flinn Scholars Program takes an entire class of Scholars to Budapest, Hungary, and neighboring Romania for a three-week seminar on the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe. Here’s a day-by-day account.

Ravi Ram ('09)

It was a Wednesday morning and had rained all of Tuesday (remember the Flinn application?) I sat outside my room thinking about the events of the previous day, trying yet again to understand how all of us could have done so much in so short a period of time. After an early morning run in the rain on Monday morning and clambering into bed late that night, the chances of a repeat performance on Tuesday morning stood at an encouraging 0%.

The rain and bleary skies, however, remained to greet me yet again on Tuesday, June 1st. Breakfast was the usual – eggs, bread, cheese, fruit, juice, hot chocolate – along with some philosophical banter between Derek and Galen and a discussion of Hugh and Katherine’s personality test results. Not even the brightest personality in our group was thrilled at the prospect of another cold, rainy day, but the morning gloom would soon be dispelled even if the clouds were not.

Agenda Item #1: The Gandhi School, a high school specially for ethnic Roma children of Hungary. We had to create a presentation of sorts for the boys and girls at the school, and as is so typical for the Flinn Class of 2009, we decided to do something with music and dance. The result: a brief history of Arizona’s universities and higher education system followed by a rendition of UA’s Bear Down fight song. Just like at the Roma village, shouts of “nice!” and “yes!” in broken English greeted us. Even better, we taught the students the song and then sang it again with all of them.

Better still, our planned performance inspired an impromptu session including a team break dance by Derek and a Roma high-schooler named Sándor, a guitar-accompanied song performed by two guys and two girls from the school, and finally a Flinn Class of ’09 version of Down by Jay Sean, led by Hugh on guitar, and Katherine, Nesima, and me singing. Music apart, the disadvantaged gypsy children had once again been the source of joy and laughter just like at the Roma village, and the bright, intelligent faces of the high schoolers provided hope that some day these people would be able to overcome their plight.

Later in the day, we had the opportunity to visit a number of museums in Pécs, all with years of culture from the Turks, Habsburgs, and all the other people and civilizations that have called Hungary home. The quality and diversity of artifacts and architecture in each exhibit was striking purely for beauty, but to me it emphasized something more, too, that tied together all of our experiences thus far.

To me, it was a symbol, a message, an idea that despite our differences – our ethnicities, families, economic status, education, etc. – we are all human beings, all bright, passionate people living on the same Earth. We often discuss the world’s problems as if we are all so far apart, as if unity and agreement are foreign concepts that rarely, if ever, are achieved. Some argue that the Roma people should be integrated into Hungarian schools and companies to help them rise as a people, while others argue for the necessity of a separately education Roma elite first. We debate alternatively that the Roma are oppressed and in need of help, or that we are forcing our Western values upon them.

If anything, interaction with the Roma people has taught me that we all share common goals, we all believe in family values, in community, in liberty, in achievement, whether we live in the poorest slum or the most beautiful mansion. As Michael said after visiting the Roma village, everyone speaks the language of fun. I know when I was 5 or 6, I would’ve run yelling and screaming to play catch and piggyback races too. The faces of the Roma kids are the smiling intelligent faces we all share as children, the hope of a peaceful world we all share as human beings.

At night I sat engaged in one of my favorite activities: a good, old-fashioned heart-to-heart conversation with Lauren. Finally, I had a chance to reflect with someone about the myriad of experiences we had all already had since leaving Arizona for central Europe. I realized that if this trip has taught me anything, it is that the awareness of this unity, these values, these common goals must come first if we are to ever truly solve the problems of the world. In my opinion, it is this understanding that will shape the future. But on a lighter note – this trip is the best thing ever.

Each summer the Flinn Scholars Program takes an entire class of Scholars to Budapest, Hungary, and neighboring Romania for a three-week seminar on the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe. Here’s a day-by-day account.

Michael Weingartner ('09)

This morning began at 12:01 when I turned to Blake and said “Hey, Blake, its 12:01.” He nodded back to me, but amongst the sound of Katy Perry and Sean Kingston, I wasn’t completely sure that he had heard me. The place is Morrison’s 2, a Budapest dance club. I’m in a circle with Blake and about seven Hungarian students studying English. It’s very crowded and I don’t know where the other Flinns are.

I think to myself, this is going to be a good day.

Flashback to about five hours ago, which isn’t technically my day to blog about, but It’s kind of important, so, whatever. At 7 pm we Flinns met up with our Hungarian host students, who would be in charge of us for the next fourteen hours. We had met these people only once before and only very briefly before we were matched up. My host’s name is Alexandra Kálmán, but we call her Szandra, and she tells me that she and the other hosts have something planned for us already, and so they take us out for the night, first to a café, next to their university library, known as Könyvtár (Hungarian for “Library.” Go figure.), and then on to Morrison’s.

All in all, somewhere in this massive club built into a three-floor building out of the nineteenth century, there are fifteen Flinn Scholars and seventeen Hungarians studying English, which I begin to realize must be at least a little easier in a world where their nightclubs play American hits all night long. I’m dancing with Szandra and Blake is dancing with Eva while his host, Istvan, dances with another of his friends. After losing some of the other Flinns--trying to find a way to watch the Sun’s Game at three in the morning--and singing Backstreet Boys at the karaoke bar with four Hungarian strangers, Blake and I decide to call it a night at about three in the morning. I return to Szandra’s dormitory and I fall asleep by about four in the morning.

It’s six in the morning, and I need to wake up because today is another big day. I get up, spend twenty minutes trying not to scald myself in the dormitory shower (Hungarian showers--don’t get me started), spend ten minutes trying to translate to Szandra in Hungarian why Scyther is my favorite Pokemon, and then spend another forty minutes getting from the dorms back to the Radio Inn where Blake and I try to piece together our own stories while sharing tales of the previous night with the rest of the Scholars. It is nine in the morning by the time we all arrive and say goodbye to our hosts. I tell Szandra, my host, that we will be back in Budapest three more days in the near future and that we should get together. She emphatically agrees, and we say our goodbyes. Szandra and Istvan are the last hosts to leave the hotel.

Ten in the morning and the bus is packed up and we are on our way to a little place called Alsószentmárton. It’s a tiny village, about 1300 people, and every single person there besides the priest is a Gypsy. Now, I use the term Gypsy here because of what exactly we as a class have come to learn about this word. The Gypsy people are the single largest minority group in Hungary, comprising somewhere between 6 and 8 percent of the entire population. Many Hungarians refer to these people as criminals, drunks, stupid, lazy, dirty, and all sorts of other terrible things. The Gypsy people hold only three seats in the Hungarian parliament of nearly 400 representatives and are significantly behind their Hungarian neighbors in education, standards of living, employment, and even in their access to the Hungarian universal-health-care system. We are told that it is more polite, more politically correct, to refer to these people as the Roma, and as we tentatively spoke of them on our way to encounter them for the first time, this is what we called them ,because we did not want to offend a group that had already been through so much. I know that this is how I felt. And then we met them.

We are greeted before we even park the bus by children who burst out of their front doors and come running from all over the village to see the Americans. They call out to us as we walk from the bus to the community center, no bigger than a convenience store, in every English word they know.

“Good Morning!”

“Good Night!”

“My name is Alex!”

“Purple!”

We wave to them as we step into the community hall, where some of the women of the village stand, having been cooking since three in the morning (which I personally found ironic, but didn’t mention). We are treated to a remarkable feast, by far the best that I have had yet in Hungary. Goulash, chicken paprikash, peppers and salads and the most wonderful bread--and did I mention the bread? As we eat and eat and eat, we are being spoken to by Laszlo, one of the men of the village who tells us about his story and the story of his family and his people.

Laszlo grew up in this village and went to the Ghandi school, which we will be visiting in a few days. He attended university, one of the first ever to do so in this village, and received a degree in sociology. After this, he left to work for Princess Cruise lines as a waiter to make money for his family (19 percent of Roma are unemployed in Hungary) as well as to make his dream of seeing the world come true. He introduces himself and his community as being Gypsy, and he is proud of this. Later, I will ask him about how he plans to make changes in the village (He is running for office in a month) and then why he chooses to call himself a Gypsy instead of a Roma. He tells me that we cannot change who we are by changing our name. We must instead change the world so that the name Gypsy can become something to be proud of.

As surprising as this might sound, this is not what inspired me most in Alsószentmárton.

We step outside, and where before there were ten children there are now twenty, thirty, more than I can count, and more are coming. We have brought stickers, balloons, jump ropes, tennis balls, frisbees and Slinkies (which, in case you were wondering, everybody does love), and these we cannot give out fast enough to meet the children’s enthusiasm. We play tag. We make balloon animals. We play catch. After a while, Ravi begins to lose his language skills and devolves into a form of communication consisting of shouts and wails, which the kids seem to understand perfectly well. Derek teaches the kids how to dance and when he is finished, they end up teaching him how to dance. A boy named Alex runs towards me and jumps up onto my back and points forward, asking me to run. I oblige him until I am too tired and let him down. He runs to Blake and does the same thing a moment later.

All around the town we walk and play and run and jump and by the end of it, we are doing acrobatics in the grassy field outside the community hall and trying our best to catch our breaths, we are laughing so hard. And then the news comes: We have to be going. The kids don’t understand any English but when Michael tells us to start getting ready to leave, they are already upset. Laszlo and his wife say goodbye to us and present us with bread and drink (Tradition dictates that guests should never be let go without sustenance for the journey.) and bid us farewell. Adam decides to give one of the kids his ASU hat, saying later that it is the best seven dollars he has ever spent.

We take our last pictures, say our last goodbyes, and head onto the bus. As we go, Alex stops me to say goodbye. We pound our fists together like Hugh taught the kids to do, and he says to me “Thank You” as I get onto the bus and we drive away to Pecs.

In Hungary, May 30th is Children’s Day, and I still don’t know whether or not we made these kids’ day, or if they made ours. Either way, by the end of it all, I can say that I’ve never felt more like a kid.

Each summer the Flinn Scholars Program takes an entire class of Scholars to Budapest, Hungary, and neighboring Romania for a three-week seminar on the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe. Here’s a day-by-day account.

Hugh Chung ('09)

Today, we began what Kata called the true "Day 1" of the trip.  After breakfast, the class was split into two groups, one to go on a walking tour and one to discuss travel plans at the Institute of International Education (IIE) office, with plans to switch roles after lunch.  Personally, I chose to go to IIE first while the others explored the Pest region of Budapest. It was very interesting to learn about the background of the organization that made all of this possible. IIE's goal is to give students abroad avenues to expand their minds and perceptions by getting them involved in a large scope of activities regarding a particular culture.

After having a thorough overview of the travel plans, I can confidently agree that they succeed to fulfill their goal. We meet some of the most respected people of the country as well as people of the struggling class. We get pampered with incredibly nice restaurants, but also have very down-to-earth experiences (literally) with picnics. Overall, I find that this will be a very eye-opening experience for all of us.

After the meeting we went out to lunch. I have noticed a recurring theme of soup, course, and dessert, but this was the first time many of us had ever tried a fruit soup, peach in particular. It was interesting to see how their culinary tradition was structured and how diverse it was. In addition, we were able to see the workers at the restaurant make their own strudel, which was also a unique experience for many of us. They also had various flavors not familiar in the states, such as poppyseed strudel.

While the group that visited Pest went to the IIE meeting after lunch, the rest of us saw a few sights in Pest, then took the bus and headed off to the more hilly and rural side of Buda. It was interesting to see the immense amount of history in the area and how it survived so many different social and political climates, including the two world wars. At the end of the day, we were able to meet with the foreign ambassador of Hungary. What was particularly interesting was that it was his last day in office. There we learned a lot about the political struggles Hungary has had with its neighboring countries and how dynamic its history is.

Flinn Scholars and Flinn Foundation staff have known that the moment would come eventually. And last night, we learned that it was drawing closer.

At the fifth of our six information sessions around the state for future applicants for the Flinn Scholarship, I was explaining the application process as I normally do--applications available in August, due in October, with semifinalist interviews in January and finalist interviews in March... And then a hand went up in the back of the room.

"That's a little different than it used to be, isn't it? I was in the first class of Flinn Scholars."

The other attendees at the session burst into applause for the speaker, who revealed herself afterwards as Rebecca Bruner, attending the session with her daughter, a would-be applicant for the 2011 Scholarship.

Rebecca was known to the Scholars Program in 1986 as Becky Kelly when she graduated from McClintock High School and took a leap of faith, accepting an unproven scholarship offered by a foundation that, truth be told, wasn't familiar to many Arizonans.

Twenty-five years later, the community of Flinn Scholars is nearing the 500 mark. Exactly when we will have a second-generation Flinn Scholar is anyone's guess, given the rigor and impartiality of the application process. But the day is approaching.

Flinn Scholar alumnus Jonathan Rovey, a 1999 graduate of Cottonwood Mingus High School, is a tax accountant in Tucson. He's also a helicopter pilot for the Arizona National Guard, and in December, he deployed to Iraq.

Click through for selections from email letters Jonathan sent home in December and January describing his experiences, along with photos from his journey so far.

Jonathan is the second Flinn Scholar to serve in Iraq, following David Ng ('94), who was stationed in Baghdad for a year as a career member of the U.S. Foreign Service. Scholar alumnus Jon Gandomi ('99), like Ng a U.S. State Department employee, is currently stationed in Kabul, Afghanistan.

As an undergraduate at the University of Arizona, Flinn Scholar Michelle Yang ('99) majored in international studies, interned with the U.S. State Department in South Korea, and founded a program offering mentorship to children adopted to the United States from China. In 2005, when she was working for Tucson-based Commonwealth Adoptions International Inc., she was named by the Tucson YWCA as one of 13 "Women on the Move."

Here are some of Michelle's reflections on what she has been doing since.

It’s been ten years since we were announced as the Flinn Class of 1999.

We were told to be the newsmakers of tomorrow, the change-makers of the world.

I look at my peers and I’m so proud. Not only proud of the milestones we have reached, but of the people we have grown into. We’ve seen each other at our worst and our best. We’ve known and felt each others’ heartbreaks, failures, and successes.

Upon graduating from the University of Arizona with dreams of becoming a Foreign Service officer, I worked in international adoption for three years as a program director for adoptions from Taiwan and as a communications director. After completing a stint at the US Embassy in Seoul, Korea, my dreams evolved into nonprofit management.

I moved to Seattle to get my MBA from the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington, emphasizing in nonprofit management and taking electives from the School of Social Work.

During my years at UW, I led a team in the Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition. Our project sought to raise funds for the Rwanda Girls Initiative, where I worked with Washington community leaders to build a secondary school for girls in a region of Rwanda especially hard hit by the genocide. The Gashora Girls Academy is now in construction stage with the community center to be completed in January 2010.

I am now the Fund Development and Alumnae Relations Managers at the Girl Scouts of Western Washington. I’ve been in my current role for almost four months now. I love knowing that every day, I am advocating for girls and working to instill in them a strong sense of confidence and leadership.

Thinking of my fellow Flinn Scholars, I recognize that our stories and dreams may be different, but our shared experiences abroad and in school have connected us and shaped us in such a unique way. The Flinn Foundation has played a pivotal role in who I am today.