The SUSI scholarship and siblings of RU

Of the Federal Government (US Department of State)-funded scholarships, SUSI (Study of United States Institutes on New Media and Journalism) scholarship bears a great significance. For the undergraduate students, the SUSI scholarship is regarded as the most prestigious and the highest paid scholarship in the world after the Fulbright scholarship which is mainly offered for the postgraduate researchers and teachers of varsities.
US State Department Scholarship Alumni include numerous Presidents, Prime Ministers and Nobel Laureates of the world. British Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Indian incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi, incumbent female President of Croatia Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic, Nobel Laureate from Bangladesh Prof Muhammad Yunus, renowned singer of Costa Rica David Ramirez are among the many alumni.
A SUSI scholarship holder gets a chance to study at Washington University, the 6th in USA and 16th in  world ranking university and also a study visit to the University of Chicago which ranks 9th in the world.
The scholarship which usually starts from the third week of June every year, offered month-long classes on New Media and Journalism, Leadership and Cultural Affairs at Washington University in Seattle. Here world renowned personalities including Pulitzer Prize winners and international award-winning journalists were invited in the class to deliver lectures as guest speakers. In Washington University renowned professors including Jessica Partnow, Sarah Stuteville, Alex Stonehill and Era Schrepfer took classes and gave exams on leadership, Journalism and New Media.
Apart from classes, sight-seeing and visits to world renowned places included camping and canoeing at Washington University.

The six-week-long SUSI scholarship is usually offered to 25 students from five countries of the world under cultural exchange programme of which five students are selected through rigorous tests from Bangladesh. At first, hundreds of applications submitted for the program are sorted in three phases and short selection of 40 candidates are prepared by the US embassy officials in Dhaka, from among 40 short listed candidates 7-10 are again short listed on the basis of essays they wrote and finally, another essay is given as task to all short listed candidates which are then sent for the final selection board in Washington DC which selects only five candidates who are offered the scholarship.
The fully federal government-funded scholarship involves US$ 12,000 with a health insurance package of $ 50,000 for each candidate.
Incidentally, two siblings from Rajshahi University were the winners of SUSI Scholarships in 2014 and 2015. The incident of winning such a prestigious scholarship by siblings might be a breakthrough in the history of SUSI.
The siblings are : Sarker Samira Jannat (shetu111@gmail.com ) and Sarker Shams Bin Sharif  (iamkingofmischief@gmail.com ).
Samira is a post-graduate student from the department of Law and Shams is a degree honours final year student of the department of English.
The incident of clinging a scholarship fully funded by the US Department of State by the siblings has not only created awe and sensation among the students and teachers of RU but also among the staff of US Department of State as well as the Embassy staff of US in Dhaka.
During his study at the Washington University in Seattle, Shams got the chance to meet with Jay Robert Inslee, an American attorney, politician and Member of the Democratic Party who has now been serving as the 23rd Governor of Washington since January 2013. He said, while talking to Shams, his State like Bangladesh will suffer greatly if climate change takes place, and he is doing all in his power to stop it and invited people from all South Asia to come and visit his beautiful State.
Shams also met with Jim McDermott, Member of Congress, 7th district of Washington State, who talked about bureaucratic procedures concerning climate change, and how things are slowly changing.
Samira also met and talked with many renowned personalities of US during her visit there.
In Washington, Samira and Shams also visited the Olympia - the capital of Washington State, Mount Rainier, Bain Bridge Island, Glass Museum, US History Museum in Tacoma and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. They also have the opportunity to have a lunch in front of the house of Microsoft's owner Bill Gate's house.
As a part of their study, they worked with the Seattle Globalist and also visited the office of Seattle Times, Washington office of Al Jazeera and the Head office of KUOW Radio.
In Chicago, the siblings visited and rode on the roof of 102 storied Sears Tower also named as Willis Tower. The tower made by renowned Bangladeshi Architect F R Khan, remained the highest tower in the world for 20 years. Here they visited the University of Chicago, Contemporary Art Museum, Architecture Tour, The Bean, the First Ferris Wheel and travelled on boat in Lake Michigan. They also exchanged opinion with the teachers and students at the University of Chicago, one of the top ranking universities of the world.
The last leg of the visit was in Washington DC where the siblings paid a visit to the Capitol Building - the White House, Washington Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Smithsonian Museums and the Library of Congress.
Both Samira and Shams expressed their special gratitude and thanks with the staff of the Embassy of the US who co-operated with them in all ways.
Sarker Shams Bin Sharif said he wants to practice in what he calls "social engineering" to uphold good governance adding that he was already working on one project regarding that. He wants to keep working on global warming and environmental issues. He loves to write and wants to become a writer. He expressed his gratitude to the Chairman of the department of English Professor Shenaz Yeasmin and teachers of his department and especially to Vice-Chancellor of Varendra University Prof Dr Osman Gani Talukder for cooperating with him in various ways.
Sarker Samira Jannat who also visited England and Scotland in a British Council-funded Scholarship and Jharkhand of India with another scholarship, said she wants to work as a Human Rights Activist with an international organization and to help deprived people around the world to get rid of litigation. She also expressed her thanks and gratitude to the Dean of the Faculty of Law of RU Prof Bishwajit Chanda and teachers of her department for co-operating with her.
Parents of Samira and Shams are both journalists stationed in Rajshahi.

shetu111@gmail.com