Congratulations to Kaiwen Sun for being selected as a 2013 Bonderman Travel Fellow!
Bonderman Travel Fellow Kaiwen Sun, senior Philosophy and Electrical Engineering major, will be spending a minimum of 8 months traveling solo to various countries including Russia, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Bhutan, India, Kenya, and South Africa. His objective is to delve into radically different cultural ideologies, learn how those ideologies influence each culture's world outlook, and how they impact its beliefs, values, and the interactions of their people.
Each year 14 UW students are awarded the Bonderman Travel Fellowships and embark on an adventure of a lifetime. UW graduate students, undergraduate students in the University Honors Program and in the UW Tacoma's Global Honors Program are all eligible to apply. The fellows must commit to traveling alone for 8 months to at least 2 continents and 6 countries. They are not permitted to participate in a program or organization, engage in any formal study at a foreign university or conduct research while traveling. The fellows are encouraged to introduce themselves to new areas of the world, cultures, and people.
The Bonderman Travel Fellowships are made possible by a 1995 gift from David Bonderman. David Bonderman earned his undergraduate degree at UW in Russian in 1963.After graduating from Harvard Law School he received the Sheldon Fellowship which allowed him to travel internationally. These travels profoundly impacted his life. His gift now allows the Bonderman Fellows to have a similar transformative educational experience.
We wish Kaiwen Sun best of luck in his travels in 2014.