Milton Barnett Malaysia Scholarship in Cornell

Wow, thanks to a lead from Chen Chow this morning. Quoted directly from the site (emphasis is mine).

The Milton L. Barnett Scholarship Endowment

This endowment in honor of Milton L. Barnett was initiated by the generous gift of Siew Nim Chee (Cornell M.I.L.R. 1953). Designed to promote Malaysian studies at Cornell, the endowment provides support for Cornell students, either Malaysians enrolled in Southeast Asian Studies or other students whose focus is on Malaysia. A portion of this fund is also used to purchase books related to Malaysia.

Awards of up to $3,000 are available to cover research projects, conference attendance, travel related to recipient’s academic program, or summer language acquisition in Malaysia.

Students from Malaysia studying at Cornell or American students studying Malaysia are encouraged to submit a letter of application to the Southeast Asia Program, 180 Uris Hall. Both undergraduate and graduate students are eligible.

What strikes me is how focused this scholarship is, especially compared to the generic scholarships that Malaysians are given these days. It’s almost like a bonus after you’ve taken the first step towards wanting to achieve something (in this case either taking the step to study about Malaysia, or a Malaysian taken the step to pursue something about Southeast Asia). Perhaps this kind of commitment makes every dollar spent on the person worth much more.

Would scholarship agencies in Malaysia consider something along this line? Instead of blindly rewarding smart young chaps, ask them to focus on something and make them commit to it before sweetening the deal.

Aside: Southeast Asian studies is super fun. Most of you didn’t know that I took one sem of this in Stanford albeit the jam packed 9 month masters. I get to sit alongside political science scholars, read long elaborate analysis on bilateral relationship and debate them in class, meet with some rather influential class mates who have been in the service for some years before coming back to class etc. Of course, truth is I audited the course (means it doesn’t count to my overall GPA – otherwise EDB won’t be happy with my results). But nevertheless, I found that I garnered a rather different level of understanding on the dynamics amongst our close neighbours. Even the class was diverse – besides 2 Americans and 1 Jap, there was at least one representative from 8 of the ASEAN countries, so it was like a mini ASEAN gathering. Prof Don Emmerson (an Indonesian expert) was cool too 🙂