Katherine Gasser '17
will study foreign languages and cultures overseas as a Boren Scholar.
Katherine, a first-year Russian and East European studies major at University of Virginia will study for a year at the Jagiellonian University of Krakow, Poland.
Gasser became interested in Eastern Europe when an older sister was studying Polish. In the summer of 2016, she and her sister spent six weeks studying the language at the Catholic University of Lublin.
“While I was there, I began to appreciate the culture and history more than I initially imagined I would, and my studies became a serious interest,” she said.
“After that summer, I decided I would study the languages, history and politics of the region as my main focus in college. I began to study Russian at UVA because Russia, as a political and cultural presence, has had a significant impact on the rest of the region and the world.”
