AUniversity of South Carolina senior who tookaforeign language for the first time two years ago to round out his summer school course load will be studying Russian overseas this summer.

Patrick Holstad, a 2005 Calhoun Academy graduate attending USC on an Army ROTC scholarship, will be heading to Astrakhan, Russia, in June to participate in an eight-week program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The Critical Language Scholarship Program offers intensive summer language institutes in 11 critical need foreign languages.

"I honestly can't tell you why I have an interest in Russian," Holstad said. "In high school, I wanted to learn Russian, but I didn't get the opportunity until the summer of 2007. I took one class and had to get two for my tuition aid, so I took Russian. I found I liked the language.

"I have taken Arabic and didn't like it, not because it was hard but I didn't enjoy speaking it," he said. "I am also taking Portuguese, too. Russian and Portuguese are very similar in the rhythm of the language and the way in which the 's' is pronounced. Strange as it sounds, they complement each other in that way."

Although far from Moscow, the Russian capital, Holstad will be in a metropolis of more than a half-million people.

"I will live with a Russian family in their home while I'm in Astrakhan," Holstad said. "During the two-day orientation in Washington, D.C., prior to leaving for Russia, they will make me and others in the program take a no-English pledge.

"The entire time, I will be speaking Russian for academic purposes, except in an emergency situation or if I really don't know a word or phrase."

Holstad, an international studies major who will be commissioned as an Army second lieutenant in May 2010, is already planning his next academic move.

"I have just submitted another application to do foreign study at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University through a program provider known as the American Institute for Foreign Study," Holstad said. "If I am accepted, I'll go there this fall and return to USC next spring. I'll study Russian and take other classes, probably in political science."

The CLS Program was launched in 2006 to offer intensive overseas study in the critical need foreign languages of Arabic, Bangla/Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi, Turkish and Urdu. In 2007, Chinese, Korean, Persian and Russian were added along with increased student capacity in the inaugural language institutes. This year, Azerbaijani will also be offered at the intermediate and advanced levels.

Holstad says he has other goals he would like to achieve during his stay in Astrakhan.

"One thing I really want to do is to find a Russian weight lifting team and lift w

ith them," he said. "I have found one in St. Petersburg but haven't found one in Astrakhan yet.

"There's a little bit of the adventure part, too, in going to southern Russia," Holstad added. "Most people only go to Moscow or St. Petersburg. I'll be going to an area to which relatively few Americans travel, so I can get a different flavor of the country."

You must be logged in to comment.