AUCA student tells about her SILC experience

March 23, 2016

Last academic year, 2014-2015, the Student Intellectual Life Committee (SILC) at the American University of Central Asia (AUCA) gave grants to 62 students, coming from different departments such as Business Administration, Sociology, Economics, European studies, International and Business Law, Anthropology, International and Comparative Politics, Psychology, Journalism and Mass Communication, Software Engineering, and Applied Mathematics and Informatics.

Last year SILC gave grants to 25 sophomores, 24 juniors, and 13 seniors. Since freshmen do not have a reliable GPA and the committee needs an overall GPA for the application, SILC does not give grants to freshmen. Seniors are ineligible in their second semester generally, on the other hand, SILC has given grants to some seniors in a few special cases for their academic development and senior thesis.

Khamida Malianchinova, a senior in Journalism and Mass Communications, shares her SILC experience:

“SILC gave me the opportunity to participate in the conference “Under Caesar’s Sword” on December 10-12, 2015.  

I received my grant in November. It was easy to apply for because I had strong arguments for why I should get it. Essentially, the conference topic was related to my preliminary senior project topic. I applied for SILC because it was a good way for me to lower the travel costs. This was my second time. I also applied in 2014 for a grant for an exchange program to Kyung Hee University. I learned about SILC my freshmen year, when an alumna, Zhenya Tsoy, made a post about it on Facebook.

This time, I went to Rome for the “Under Caesar’s Sword” conference devoted to the persecution of the Christians. The conference gathered many scholars from whom I learned about the situation of religious discrimination in the Middle East. After the conference, I traveled to Milan to hear my favorite band (ONE OK ROCK) in concert and meet up with cool friends from all over the world.

I am very thankful to professor Gorkem Artsungur for his readiness to support and answer the questions for the SILC. I hope the SILC budget increases in the upcoming years, so more students will be able to do their own academic activities.”

<< go to news list