UND senior garners Congress-Bundestag Fellowship

UND senior and Valley City native Colin Preszler has been awarded a 2010 Congress-Bundestag Fellowship. Preszler will join 75 other awardees in the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Professionals, a yearlong federally funded program for study and work in Germany. About 650 applicants from colleges and universities around the country were screened in this competitive process.

Preszler is a fifth-year senior majoring in finance and German. While in Germany, he will attend a two-month intensive German language course, study at a German university or professional school for four months, and complete a five-month internship with a German company in his career field. Participants in this program, which was initiated by Congress 1984, come from nearly every career field and enjoy the opportunity to learn about everyday German life from a variety of perspectives.

The Congress-Bundestag is a reciprocal scholarship program. U.S. participants go to Germany while German participants come to U.S. colleges and universities. The program was conceived and supported by members of U.S. Congresa and its German equivalent, the German Parliament, or Bundestag. The program is financially supported by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs undre the Fulbright Hays Act and by the Bundestag.

The program is designed primarily for young adults in business, technical, engineering, vocational, and agricultural fields, though candidates in all career fields are encouraged to apply.

Preszler is former president of the International Business Club, and he is president of the German Cooking Club, the Stammtisch (German Club); he also is co-lead analyst, consumer non-cyclical goods sector, for the UND Student Managed Investment Fund. He recently won the Boswau Book Scholarship, which awards him German books for free for two years.

— Joan Hawthorne, assistant provost, 777-4684, joan.hawthorne@und.edu.