Sarah Bock

2025 Gilman Scholarship Recipient

Hometown

New Haven, IN

Major

First-Year Engineering

College

College of Engineering

 

Established in 2001, the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program is committed to sending American students of limited financial means from all backgrounds to study abroad.

 

Sarah Bock took a giant leap toward a long-held dream when she was awarded the Gilman Scholarship to study abroad in South Korea. Well before she set foot on campus, Sarah knew that she wanted to take advantage of Purdue’s extensive offerings for study abroad. In the fall of her freshman year, Sarah invested her time both in writing three essays for the Gilman application and selecting a specific program that would support her long-term personal and professional goals. Poised to succeed, Sarah had been thinking about this dream for the past eight years during which she proactively learned about South Korean literature and culture, history, industry, and cuisine. With ambitions to one day live and work in South Korea, Sarah wanted to study at one of the oldest universities in Seoul. In addition to taking Korean language classes, she will enroll in two STEM courses that apply to her major. “Korean food will be one of the best ways for me to connect with Korean culture,” she notes, “as my experience working in a Korean restaurant gives me some prior insight.”