A sampler of ELI students: class of 2006

Juliana Shayeb, keynote speaker at ELI’s February ’06 graduation, encouraged graduates to set high standards for themselves.

“Nothing is out of reach when we do our best,” the Brazilian told the audience. “I did it. All you have to do is believe in yourself.”

That mind-set characterizes the three individuals portrayed below, each of whom took classes at ELI this past year. With diverse goals, but equally high ideals, they have been chosen to represent the Institute’s class of 2006.

Global peace through personal interaction
When the latest Nobel Peace Prize was announced, Barbara Morris clipped the news story to share with her class. The award to Wangari Maathai of Kenya would make an interesting connection to the textbook unit on Africa, she thought.

For one student, however, the story was old news.

"I saw her. I heard her speak with the students of Soka University in Tokyo,” said Sujin Kim.

	Sujin Kim

Professor Maathai, an environmentalist, was visiting Tokyo for the Kyoto Protocol. While in Japan, she participated in a public dialogue, which Sujin attended, with Soka University’s founder, Dr. Daisaku Ikeda, an internationally known Buddhist humanist and recipient of the United Nations Peace Award.

A native of South Korea, Sujin was encouraged by her parents to study in Japan. Members of the same Buddhist sect as Ikeda, they subscribed to his philosophy that global peace can be achieved through personal interaction across cultures.

For Sujin, the choice meant 10 months of studying Japanese before she could take courses in her major, education. Despite the language barrier, she earned high grades and scholarships from the Japanese government. She joined the university broadcast club to improve her pronunciation, became an announcer and began to consider broadcasting as a career.

Coming to ELI and the University of Delaware provided a new forum for Sujin’s personal and academic development.

“It was the best experience I could have,” she said, referring to sharing an apartment in Christiana Towers with roommates from Morocco and Colombia. “I could learn lots of things and think about world peace for myself.”

Sharing such diverse cultures under one roof created some unique situations. As part of her Buddhist practice, Sujin prayed twice a day. Her Muslim roommate had to pray five times. “Sometimes we would pray at the same time,” she recalled, describing how she would be sitting in a chair, chanting, while her roommate kneeled on a carpet, reciting passages from the Koran. Starting in September, in addition to ELI classes, Sujin audited a UD broadcasting course with Professor Ralph Begleiter. Each week she wrote a commentary, which Begleiter would review, and several times she recorded broadcasts for the campus radio and TV stations.

“My ELI teachers, Susan Coakley and Ken Cranker, helped a lot,” she said. She also got extra coaching from her tutor, Dave Cassling, and from her American classmates.

“One student coached me for two hours,” she said.

Such extensive experience on campus taught Sujin the “secret” to relating to American students, a hurdle for many ELI students.

“If I treat them like my friends, they really open up,” she said.

He believes he can fly
During his fourth and final session at ELI, passing the test was Grzegorz Makowski’s main preoccupation. It meant the threshold to further education in the States and to career goals at home. But–– unlike for many of his classmates in the advanced level Reading and Writing in Your Field class––it was not the TOEFL language test that Gregory needed to take.

Instead, the 32-year-old Polish business owner was preparing for the entrance exam to a pilot school in Florida.

Gregorz Makowski

For that, English skills honed at ELI were essential. Not only did they help him study the hefty textbook on aerodynamics which he carried around for months in his backpack, but also they were crucial for the oral qualifying exam in June––when he might be asked to explain in detail how a plane engine functions or how propellers work.

“It was difficult, studying English and aviation at the same time, especially at first,” said Gregory.

Most of his weekends were spent accumulating 170 flight hours. But the sacrifices were worth it. In fact, studying aviation in the United States meant the fulfillment of a childhood dream.

As a child, Gregory used to bike to the nearest airbase to watch Su22 fighter-bombers take off. Going to air shows became his hobby. He hoped to join the army so he could become a pilot. That hope was shattered when he broke his leg when he was 12. Though that later disqualified him for military service, Gregory remained determined to fly somehow. A second operation and eight implants in his leg kept him bedridden for six months. The resultant loss of 70% of the muscle mass on his right side meant a long and grueling rehabilitation.

“Flying is a kind of reward for me, for going through this,” he said.

In the back of his mind, Gregory hoped he could get a private pilot license. However, private lessons were still financially out of reach. Then his sister contacted a friend of hers in the United States, a freelance instructor at an aviation company in Delaware.

“Come to America. I can help you,” he told Gregory. “You can do it cheaper, faster, better here.”

While here, Gregory located an aviation school in Florida where he could fly twin-engine planes for less than half the price in Poland. That experience is key to getting a commercial license in Europe. Before returning home, he will have accumulated an additional 100 hours of flight time on a BE-76 Duchess twin-engine plane and he will have passed two oral and two written exams. Further tests await him in Europe before he can fly there, but Gregory is undaunted.

"Aviation is my passion,” he said.

All the world’s a stage
Many students come to ELI in search of a personal dream. Sudapim Bodhipakti is one who found and is living hers.

Sudapim, or Jah as her friends call her, was born in Bangkok, Thailand. Jah studied at a public Buddhist school there and later graduated from Chulalongkorn University, the “Harvard” of Thailand, with a bachelor’s degree in law. Although all of her studies had been in Thai, her native language, she knew that English proficiency could be a key ingredient in success, so she studied the language diligently. She loved to sing and watch movies in English, and so her skills grew quickly as she pursued the activities she enjoyed.

	Sudapim Bodhipakti

Her mother encouraged her to try many different activities, such as Thai classical dance, ballet, gymnastics and ice skating. As Jah’s skills developed, so did her philosophy of life.

“If a new opportunity comes along, don’t be scared to try it. Go for it! Enjoy your experiences. You can even learn valuable life lessons from those that turn out unexpectedly,” she said.

When Jah came to study at ELI, she worked hard, graduating with honors and receiving the outstanding student award in April 2006. Moreover, she put her philosophy into practice by getting involved in campus life. After attending UD student activities night, she decided to join the Harrington Theatre Arts Company.

By joining this group, she not only made many American friends, but she also got the chance to try out for a part in the theatrical production Jekyll & Hyde. To her surprise and delight, she was chosen to play a role in the show. Her part was challenging, requiring her to dance, speak and sing in English.

After her graduation from ELI, Jah had to say goodbye to all her new American friends, her international classmates, and especially to her best friends from Japan and Taiwan. Her dream is to return to the States to pursue a graduate degree in theater arts management and then to go back home to Thailand to work in this field.

Since she returned to Bangkok, she auditioned for a professional production and won a major part in Tawipob: the Musical, the story of a woman who travels back through time to the year 1893, when Thailand and France were involved in an important conflict.

Today, Jah often travels back in her mind to the time when she was studying at ELI. Her advice to current students is to avoid spending too much time socializing with friends in their native language. Instead, she encourages them to take chances, get involved in student clubs on campus and meet American students. These adventures will result in new life experiences, improved English skills, and great friends. “And, like me,” she says, “you might even find yourself living your dream.”