Myra Wong ’24 is the daughter of two U.S. Army soldiers and is a military-connected student at Syracuse University. While studying public relations at S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Wong was able to study abroad in Florence thanks to a scholarship exclusive to military-connected students at Syracuse University. The Daniel and Gayle D’Aniello Endowed Florence Scholarship paid for all costs, including tuition, to allow three students the opportunity to study abroad in Florence.
Transcript:
Part of the reason that Syracuse was really top of my list was because it was such a good school for veterans, and I knew that I would have to pay for school using the GI Bill. And so Syracuse was a really good private school, when it came to accepting 100% of the GI Bill.
And it was also a really great school for what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to study communications and so in looking at communications schools, Newhouse obviously came up. And so my mom and I visited my junior year of high school, and I just fell in love with the school. I really felt like there was a sense of community and a sense of pride in the school that I really wanted, I fell in love with the campus. And I knew I really wanted to go here.
Studying abroad in Florence is so different from studying here at Syracuse because you could just end class in Florence and go to, like, a world famous museum and see, like, the David on just a random Tuesday. Like you could end class and go on an adventure. It’s like a different country for the weekend. Like everything is so different and there’s so many opportunities to travel and just learn more about either the culture that you’re in or fly to a different country and learn about a new culture. scholarship was so impactful because it covered a lot of things that would not have been covered for my experience otherwise.
And so getting the scholarship took a big weight off of my shoulders and a weight off of my family’s shoulders I guess when it comes to my expectations, I do expect to have a more international perspective when I do enter the workforce and pursue my career.