Student wins Boren scholarship, plans to study in Japan

Sorokina

Undergraduate student Anastasia Sorokina lived in Japan as a small child and has always wanted to return. Next year, she’ll get the chance, after being awarded a Boren scholarship.

“It’s always been a part of my life. I’ve always wanted to go back,” she said.

Sorokina just completed her sophomore year at Washington University in St. Louis. She is double-majoring in comparative arts and international and area studies, both in Arts & Sciences.

Sorokina was awarded a David L. Boren scholarship, which provides funding for U.S. undergraduate students to study abroad in parts of the world critical to U.S. interests and underrepresented in study-abroad programs.

The National Security Education Program funds Boren Scholarships. The program focuses on areas, languages and fields of study important to national security, broadly defined to range from promotion of America’s well-being to environmental protection to disease prevention.

While born in Russia, Sorokina and her family moved to Japan when she was young because her father, an engineer, received a fellowship at the University of Tsukuba, she recalled. She lived there for four years, until she was 6 years old.

After moving to the United States, her parents found a Japanese program in their Maryland community, so she continued studying the language, history and other aspects of Japanese culture on Saturdays throughout her childhood.

“I missed out on a lot of sleepovers when I was younger,” she joked.

Sorokina plans to head to Japan in January and stay there until August 2014, taking courses and experiencing the culture in Kyoto and, during the summer, in Tokyo. Her coursework will count toward her degree requirements at WUSTL.

And while it won’t be totally new and she has a basic grasp of the language, Sorokina said she has much still to learn.

As a condition of receiving a Boren scholarship, students agree to a year of work for the federal government in a national security-related job. Sorokina said she envisions working for the State Department for a year after graduation if a position is available. She said she also could serve in the Peace Corps to fulfill her obligation.

Sorokina said she’d love to land a job focused on the cultural, rather than the political, side of foreign policy, and that her Boren obligation could help her learn what such work is like and what she wants to do long-term.