Alumni Spotlight: Eloise Herdegen

When I applied to NSLI-Y Russian in the fall of my senior year, I didn’t know how much my experience would change the next year and a half of my life. My summer in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan was an amazing experience, and the lessons I learned and the connections I made while abroad have continued to impact my life in nearly every way!

In the summer of 2023, I arrived for my NSLI-Y program in Bishkek not knowing a word of Russian. After a whirlwind 7 weeks of cultural excursions, spending time with my language partner, and studying hard for our intensive classes, I had fallen in love with Kyrgyzstan and the Russian language. Luckily, I had already set myself up to continue to study Russian - my university, which I entered immediately after returning from Kyrgyzstan, was the host of a Russian Flagship Program.

Within the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Russian Flagship program, I met many of my friends, helping me quickly adjust to campus life. Among them is my close friend Grace, who I bonded with after learning about her own NSLI-Y experience in Bishkek in summer 2022. Plus, I lived in a Russian-speaking dorm room – one of my roommates was an international student from St. Petersburg! NSLI-Y not only increased my language skills while on-program but equipped me with the knowledge and cultural understanding to continue connecting with Russian language and culture while back in the US.

In the summer of 2024, I did my best to recreate the magic of my NSLI-Y experience by studying abroad again - this time, in Yerevan, Armenia. Being abroad for a second time and arriving with a higher language level helped me immediately integrate into my host community, spending time with local friends and growing close with my host family. I found that, because of my NSLI-Y experience, I was more confident and better equipped to independently handle challenging situations that arose.

Most recently, I attended the NSLI-Y Alumni Public Service and Leadership Workshop in Washington, DC, which was instrumental in connecting me to opportunities and resources in the federal government that will allow me to continue using my Russian as a young professional. I am so grateful to the NSLI-Y program for allowing me to have all these incredible experiences in the past year and a half. If I had not completed the NSLI-Y Russian program, I believe that my path thus far would be wildly different – and far less interesting! I can’t wait to see how NSLI-Y will continue to affect my professional career and open doors in the future.