The Philippine-American Educational Foundation (PAEF), also known as Fulbright Philippines, announced the newest batch of outstanding Filipino students and graduates for the 2023 to 2024 Global Undergraduate Exchange Program (Global UGRAD).
The international exchange is funded by the United States Department of State and administered by PAEF, the longest-running Fulbright commission in the world and the oldest international scholarship program in the Philippines.
The opportunity provides a diverse group of youth leaders with extensive exposure to American society, culture, values and education through substantive engagements in US colleges and universities.
The grantees, which represent various disciplines, to include architecture, engineering, biochemistry, literature and the arts, can champion their respective country’s traditions with their foreign contemporaries.
Out of 519 applicants, 21-year-old Mcaine Andrei Carlos, a Multimedia Arts (MMA) student under the School of New Media Arts (SNMA) of the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB), emerged as one of the nine successful students in the Philippines.
He is the first and sole representative of the college in the 75-year history of PAEF.
Carlos brings with him numerous recognitions for his servant leadership and academic excellence. During Senior High, he was granted the Strand Excellence Award for having the highest General Weighted Average (GWA) and outstanding extra-curricular performance. He is likewise the first in his batch in Benilde to receive the prestigious Gawad Benildyano Award, given out to outstanding students or individuals.
He is part of a team that created a mobile app that educates hard-to-reach coastal communities in the Philippines on how to address their plastic trash problems. His significant role in Student Trainers, the volunteer arm of Benilde Student Involvement Unit, likewise allows him to organize formation, orientation, and community-building projects.
“The impressive academic accomplishments and credentials of Mr. Carlos have made possible his selection as a principal candidate,” PAEF Executive Director Julio S. Amador III wrote in the acceptance letter addressed to DLS-CSB President Br. Edmundo Fernandez FSC.
“The application process was tedious, competitive, and challenging but I feel fortunate to have been chosen to represent the Philippines and the Benildean-Lasallian identity on the international scene,” Carlos shared.
“Out of the thousands of undergraduate applicants from top-performing Philippine colleges and universities, it is a great pleasure to be the sole art student to have made it to the cohort,” he added. “As a multimedia artist, it is my joy to carry the multitude of stories of the communities I have worked with and share them with the global society.”
Come August 2023, Carlos will be enrolled full-time for one term at Emporia State University, the third oldest public university in the state of Kansas committed to “preparing students for lifelong learning, rewarding careers, and adaptive leadership.”
He will be taking 12 units related to marketing communications, leadership, public dialogue and advocacy concentration, and multimedia design.
His international travel, tuition, room and board, insurance, monthly stipend, and funding for books will be covered.
The Philippine delegation likewise includes Mark Virgil Jamer (Agribusiness Management and Entrepreneurship, University of the Philippines [UP] Los Baños), Phil Justin Pangilinan (Chemistry, UP Diliman), Jessica Jamimah Lopez (Psychology, Polytechnic University of the Philippines [PUP]), Franz Erick Calanio (Social Sciences major in Anthropology minor in Political Science, UP Baguio), Rachel Mecaela Baxal (Accountancy, PUP Maragondon), Nicolle Kelly Puspus (Psychology, Cebu Doctors’ University), Monique Granaderos (Special Needs Education-Generalist, Holy Cross of Davao College), and Dinah Ross Degorio (Civil Engineering, University of Mindanao).
