Many students travel with their families over summer break, but most don’t leave the country on their own. Junior Olivia Belin will do just that for six weeks this summer as she travels to Indore, India, as part of the National Security Institute for Youth program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.

Belin was chosen to receive a merit-based scholarship to travel to a foreign country to learn the local language in an immersion-based style.

“They just send students from across the United States to places…that the United States has more interest in people getting to know the language,” Belin said.

Through the application process, students got to choose the top two countries they wanted to travel to. Belin chose and was assigned to India, so that she could learn the Hindi language.

While living with a host family in Indore, Belin will attend two different schools to learn not just the language, but the culture overall.

“There’s two schools that we’re going to and they’re both centralized on language, but I think there will also be a lot of culture,” Belin said. “I know we’ll also travel around India too.”

While many of the specific details of the trip are still unknown to Belin, she has a basic understanding of how the program will go because her brother also received a scholarship through NSI-Y to go to China. Her brother’s experience is what lead Belin to apply for the scholarship.

“My brother actually got a scholarship to go to China, let’s see, about four years ago,” Belin said. “I think he first heard about it from [Tony] Wichmann.”

Belin is looking forward to new experiences in a country very different from the rest of the world.

“I’ve never been to India and I think it will be unlike any place I’ve ever been so I’m really excited to see what India is like because I’ve always wanted to go there,” Belin said.

In the end Belin hopes the program will prepare her for her future in college and even as a career.

“If I find a really big interest in Hindi I could consider minoring in it,” Belin said, “but sometime in the future I want to go into missionary work so with knowledge of Hindi would help with that.”