By Lookout Staff

June 2, 2015 -- A Santa Monica College student will be spending the summer studying Mandarin in China, one of only 550 students awarded a national language scholarship from the U.S. Department of State.

Courtney Kelly, a political science major at SMC, was selected for the Critical Language Scholarship (CSL), a fully funded, overseas language and cultural immersion program for American undergraduate and graduate students, SMC officials said.

Scholarship winners receive free room and board and international and domestic airfare while studying a new language 20 hours per week. CLS participants spend up to 10 weeks studying foreign language abroad, SMC officials said

Kelly, who plans to pursue a career as a U.S. diplomat, will be studying at Soochow University in China. While in China, she will live with a local family, SMC officials said.

Kelly said she became interested in Chinese culture watching the Disney movie, “Mulan,” as a young girl.

“Everyone who hears that giggles, but it’s true,” said Kelly. “Watching that movie, I wanted to be her. I loved the culture and the artwork. I wanted to wear comfortable clothes and save the country.”

After studying the language for three years, Kelly speaks Mandarin at an intermediate level. She said spending the summer studying in China will deepen her linguistic skills in Mandarin, as well as expand her knowledge of Chinese culture, history, politics and business practices.

The goal of the CLS program is to broaden “the base of Americans studying and mastering critical languages and building relationships between the people of the United States and other countries,” the program’s website said.

“Most languages offered through the program don’t require applicants to have any experience studying critical languages,” the website said.

But some languages, including Chinese, Japanese and Russian, require applicants to have at least two years of study, the website said.

“The State Department’s idea is to find languages that Americans do not usually speak,” said Kelly, “languages that are away from American comfort zones and our sphere of influence.”

Among the “critical” languages included in the CLS program are Arabic, Azerbaijani, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Persian, Russian and Turkish, according to the program’s website.

This fall, Kelley will transfer from SMC to the American University of Paris in France to major in international comparative politics and build her knowledge of yet another nation’s culture, said SMC spokeswoman Grace Smith.

“I’ll be examining the French language, culture, history, how they see the world, as well as the American-French relationship,” she said.

“Most of my friends at SMC are French, Russian and Chinese,” said Kelley. “They were really the ones who urged me to go to school in France and to go to China.”