Two Columbia College students have been awarded prestigious 2017 U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarships.

The students — Kaatje Greenberg CC’18, who will be studying Russian in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, and Benjamin Regas CC’19, who will be studying Chinese in Suzhou, China — will receive eight to ten weeks of fully-funded, intensive language instruction and structured cultural enrichment experiences.

The Critical Language Scholarship Program is part of a U.S. government effort to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages. Participants are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship and apply their critical language skills in their future professional careers.

This years winners are among approximately 550 U.S. undergraduate and graduate students to receive 2017 scholarships. The finalists represent more than 200 institutions of higher education from across the country. Another Columbia undergraduate, Benjamin Thompson GS’17, also received this prestigious scholarship and will study Indonesian in Malang, Indonesia.

Since 2006, the Critical Language Scholarship Program has sent more than 5,200 American students to learn critical languages all over the world. The program actively recruits in states and regions of the United States that have been historically underrepresented in international exchange and encourages students from diverse backgrounds to apply.