My personal statement:

Since I visited the Marine Lab during my freshman year at Duke, I have been waiting anxiously for an opportunity to experience a summer session in Beaufort. The natural beauty of the coast and the enthusiasm of the professors convinced me that I was not going to complete my undergraduate career without taking at least one course there.

As a biology minor, I feel that I am lacking first-hand exposure to the natural world in an academic setting. While it is all well and good to discuss physiology within the confines of a classroom, it is another thing to be able to collect specimens and study them first-hand. A student of biology who possesses only textbook knowledge, excellent though that knowledge may be, is like a student of music who has memorized chord progressions and cadences but has never reveled in the uplifting joy of a symphony. In this way, I feel that taking Marine Zoology in Beaufort will fill the final gap in my undergraduate biology education.

My reasons for applying for a tuition scholarship are purely financial. As an international student, I do not qualify for financial aid during the fall and spring semesters; neither am I receiving scholarship money from any other external organization. It will be extremely hard for me to fund myself for this course should I not receive aid from the institution.

Thus, I feel that this coincidence of qualification, exuberance and need are the reasons I deserve aid for this upcoming summer session.