UNL will hold a day of workshops Nov. 8 devoted to helping students compete for nationally competitive scholarships. Truman Day will culminate with UNL being recognized as one of two 2010 Honor Institutions by the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation.
The workshops will be led by UNL alumni and current students who successfully completed the application process. They include Truman Scholars, Truman finalists, a Marshall Scholar, a Goldwater Scholar and one alumnus who won both the Truman Scholarship and a Fulbright Scholarship. All were scholarship winners or finalists within the last 10 years.
Aaron Eske said his experience as a Marshall Scholar was "life-changing." Eske won the Marshall Scholarship in 2006 and was a Truman finalist. The Marshall Scholarship finances graduate students to study in the United Kingdom in the field of their choice. Today Eske is a senior account executive at a public relations firm that specializes in working with non-profit clients like the American Heart Association. He is living in Washington, D.C, and just finished writing a book that he started writing as a Marshall scholar.
Eske appreciated the opportunity to live in a country that had little in common with Nebraska, except for English and McDonald's.
"Being exposed to the bigger world has definitely furthered my personal life goals, and I suppose my professional goals as well," he said.
Eske asks that students focus on the study, not the scholarship. "And if you don't get the scholarship, then please keep going after your dream program all the same," he said.
His advice to nervous students? "Take chances and say yes to adventure and something will work out. And if it takes a while, at least you're having a good time while you wait," he said.
Aaron Eske