Eight Mississippi State students are heading abroad this year with the help of the highly competitive Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship, marking the largest group of MSU recipients in university history.

“I realized there are so many types of writing—you can write for a magazine, for essays, for news stories,” said Portia Agyapong, reflecting on her internship in Mississippi State’s College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Office last summer. “Even though I initially struggled because I was stuck with an academic writing mindset, it was an amazing experience to learn different ways of writing during my internship. I really learned a lot from it.”

A rising Mississippi State junior will study abroad this summer through the prestigious Fulbright UK Summer Institute, one of the most selective summer scholarship programs in the world.