ROCK HILL, SOUTH CAROLINA – Two Winthrop University students will travel overseas in the next year with financial help from the U.S. State Department.
The two students are Alexis Becht, a junior biology major who plans to study in Japan for spring semester 2025, and Silvia Quiroz Velasquez, a sophomore modern languages major who will be studying in France starting in mid-May.
The coveted Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship is a U.S. State Department program that awards $4,500 per student. It is designed to help students of limited financial means with the chance to study abroad, providing them with skills critical to our national security and economic prosperity.
Becht, of York, South Carolina, transferred into Winthrop last fall from York Technical College. She wants to learn more about Japanese culture and the language to help in her goal to provide alternative therapy to a society that has a stigma about mental health and suffers from a high suicide rate. As someone who is bipolar, she has found that each person responds differently to treatments, whether drugs and/or therapy. “One size does not fit all,” she said, adding that her goal is to start a clinical mental health counseling service once she finishes graduate school.
Born in the United States, Quiroz spent the last decade in Peru and returned to this country to help her sister in Rock Hill and then stayed to attend college. “I have always loved languages and decided to pursue it as a career for my major,” she said. “I’m currently studying French and Spanish, and I would love to learn many others.”
She decided to attend Winthrop because of the many opportunities to study abroad. “I decided to do a summer program which is about two months so I can see what it’s like living in Paris,” she said, adding that she will stay with a host family. “I’ll be able to gain more knowledge and experience and perfect my language skills.”
Quiroz will just miss the summer Olympics which are being held in late July and August in France.
She isn’t sure how she will use her language skills, possibly translating or teaching, but knows that one of her passions is learning the roots of different languages.
For more information, contact Judy Longshaw, news and media services manager, at longshawj@winthrop.edu or at 803/323-2404.
