University of Iowa student Mark Schoen stands outside of Schaefer Hall for a portrait on Monday, April 8, 2019.
Kelsey Harrell, The Daily Iowan
Attending and graduating from high school in Singapore isn’t an opportunity many students from the U.S. can say they have had. Mark Schoen credits his experiences in high school as the reason he plans to live and work abroad in the future.
“When I came back from high school to Iowa, I really realized that was something that I really needed and wanted in my life, so I was looking around for opportunities,” he said.
Schoen, a University of Iowa junior majoring in economics and art, was awarded the U.S. State Department Critical Language Scholarship to study Bahasa, the official language of Indonesia.
For six weeks during the summer, Schoen will travel to Malang, Indonesia, to take an intensive language course in Bahasa, also called Indonesian. Schoen will immerse himself in the language through his coursework and interactions with the community he’ll live in.