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Off Campus, On Purpose
The National and International Fellowships and Scholarships Office helps students succeed at home and abroad — and learn how to tell their stories.
By Gabby Ferreira
Left photo: Nishi Rajakaruna (far left) in South Africa with researchers from South Africa and the United States. Right photo: Henry Connolly works with students in Guyana.
In 2024, Cal Poly established a visionary program to help Mustangs connect to scholarships and fellowships in the U.S. and abroad. The National and International Fellowships and Scholarships (NIFS) Office was founded with the motto “potential over prestige,” acknowledging that its value comes not just from students winning awards, but from gaining self-knowledge in the process.
Scholarship and fellowship experiences can help students get ahead in their degrees, and even clarify what they want to do with their lives and careers. Thatʼs why the NIFS staff work hard to match every student interested in these experiences with a program that will fit their interests.
In addition to helping students who come into their office looking for information and guidance, NIFS also recently established a course in fellowships and scholarships to provide even more support for students who are curious about the process.
Cal Poly Magazine spoke with NIFS coordinator Nishi Rajakaruna, a biological sciences professor and mutliple-Fulbright Program winner, about the importance of scholarship and fellowships, as well as his hopes for students who come to NIFS. This interview has been edited and condense for clarity.
Nishi Rajakaruna explores rare plants in the Namib Desert.
What originally motivated you to pursue scholarships and fellowships?
I got my first opportunity because someone who didn’t really know me helped me.
When I got into university in Sri Lanka, there was political strife and civil unrest and a war breaking out. A lot of people my age had to leave the country and go abroad to pursue an education. But Sri Lankan salaries did not translate to American dollars, and we had to find a way to pay for it.
There was a retired engineer in Sri Lanka who helped students find opportunities in the U.S. for free. He helped hundreds of students come to the U.S. with scholarships, and I was one of them.
Because of scholarships, I was able to support myself through my entire undergraduate education.
These are life-changing experiences that everybody should get. I want to give other people the opportunities that I’ve had, and not just tell them about it, but guide them through the process. I often think of winning a fellowship as a team effort. A whole team of people need to be there to help somebody get a scholarship.
How did you pay it forward before you became the NIFS coordinator?
When I first came to Cal Poly, I had students come to me during office hours or after class to ask me about scholarships and opportunities to go abroad. Because they knew I was a naturalized U.S. citizen and a foreigner, they would always come to me to talk about opportunities to go to India or Sri Lanka or that part of the world.
I realized very quickly that there was no dedicated office on campus where students could go for help searching for scholarships or fellowships.
I wound up putting together a page on my personal website that directed students to scholarships for botanical research, internships, grad schools, scholarships to go to graduate school abroad or English teaching assistantships. Now that I know more about scholarships, I realize that I only had a very small number of opportunities listed, but I knew about these opportunities because I had been applying for them since I came to the U.S. as an undergrad.
What would you tell any student who is curious about applying for fellowships and scholarships?
I always tell students: it doesn’t matter what it is or how small the amount of money is. Get a scholarship that you compete for, and that’s going to make you somebody that people will look at twice. That’s your door to the rest of the scholarship world.
We have scholarships for undergraduate research, for graduate study in the U.S. and graduate study in other countries. The international programs get a lot of attention because people want to go abroad. That’s what young people like to do, and it’s something I want more people to do. But we have national scholarships for leadership opportunities and public service work.
All of these experiences are incredibly transformative and help you see the world in ways that you wouldnʼt have otherwise. They show you your place in the world and what else is out there for you.
Life is about being able to tell your story and understand how you fit in and learn about the world. Thatʼs what these opportunities do. What matters is that youʼre taking this opportunity on, and through that process of applying, you learn how to tell your story with purpose.
Expanding Horizons
Cal Poly Magazine also spoke to a few former students who have benefited from NIFS. Read their perspectives below.
Olivia Huyler (Political Science '25)
Huyler, who won a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Award to teach in Spain from August 2025 to June 2026, became involved with NIFS during the second round of her rigorous application process.
“Following my Fulbright experience, my mind feels more open. Going to a different country and living there is so much different than studying abroad or going on a vacation. I will carry the people I met and the perspectives I gained there with me forever.
I think fellowships, especially international fellowships, really give you these perspectives and experiences that have helped me feel so ready to really propel myself forward in the workforce now. I feel much more independent and capable.”
First photo: Nishi Rajakaruna (third from left) in the field with colleagues from Spain and South Africa during his Fulbright program in South Africa. Second photo: Henry Connolly snaps a selfie in New Amsterdam, Guyana. Third photo: Zoya Meydbray, left, with a classmate during her program in Latvia.
Jeremy Okmin (Journalism '26)
Okmin applied for and was accepted into the Japan Exchange Teaching (JET) Program for the 2026-27 school year. He spoke to Cal Poly Magazine about a month before leaving for Japan to teach English.
“ I think applying for JET helped me to spend a little bit more time putting intention behind the things that I was applying for and the things that I was putting my time into. It also helped me sharpen my interviewing and writing skills. You aren’t just handed a job. You have to be personable and funny and nice and be somebody that they want to work with.
As a journalism major, I think I have an inherently curious mind. I’m really excited to see that life switch right in front of me and spend a year figuring out why we live differently. How can I serve as somebody to bridge the gap? It’s a cultural exchange program after all. Trying to make sense of it all is something Iʼm really excited for.”
Henry Connolly (Anthropology and Geography '25)
Connolly, who recently became a Peace Corps Volunteer teaching science to young students in Guyana, learned about NIFS during his final year at Cal Poly. The encouragement and support he found there led him to apply for the Peace Corps after college.
“The number one thing NIFS helped with was being accountable to myself and to my dreams. It opened my mind to what my future could be. You could graduate, which is in itself awesome, but you could also go to the next step, and maybe that’s locked behind an application, but that opportunity is there for you if you wanted to chase it down.
I went to the very first NIFS presentation and told the coordinators that I was interested in the Peace Corps. Then I went to the next meeting and the next, and they asked me how my application was coming along. They helped me stay accountable and wouldn’t let me give up before I started.
My job in the Peace Corps is being a science and environment educator for third grade to sixth grade students here in Guyana. Right now, this is a hyper-focused time when I can try to figure out how to be a teacher and have a lot of hands-on experience. I’m really excited.”
The whole process of opening yourself up to possibility is valuable ... It's just a matter of recognizing that within yourself and then being able to articulate that for others.
Zoya Meydbray (Political Science '25)
Meydbray won both the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Award (ETA) in Moldova and the Princeton in Asia fellowship for Kazakhstan, choosing to complete the Fulbright ETA in Moldova. She also studied Russian in Latvia immediately following graduation as part of the State Department’s Critical Language Scholarship, which empowers students to learn languages of strategic importance for the United States. She worked as a NIFS program assistant in winter and spring of 2026.
“In my last year of college, I knew I wanted to go to law school, but I just didn’t feel ready. I decided that I wanted to go abroad first and have these amazing experiences before I’m really tied down to a place or a family. I was just like, “Why not?”
Impostor syndrome is really prevalent in this space, where you think you’re not good enough because you’re not a Nobel Prize winner or something. Being able to reinforce other students’ interest in these awards is really, really helpful to them and rewarding to me because they realize that they can get these scholarships. I’ve won three of them, and I’m also just a regular person.
Applying to these things will put you into rooms that you might not get in otherwise, and it’s such a story that you can tell. I didn’t apply for these scholarships so it would look good on law school applications, but it’s really helpful.
In the future, I’m hoping to concentrate on immigration law, or something else in the public interest, which is partly why Fulbright is so important to me. I think it’s so valuable to connect with communities and learn a language that could be useful in helping others that I might not otherwise connect with.
Connecting with NIFS has been really helpful in knowing that there are people behind me that stand with me and support me in any way that they can. The main thing I want other students to know is to start early in reaching out to NIFS. If you donʼt know where to start, that’s okay. We can help you.”
Lily Bryan (Business Administration '26)
Bryan participated in the NIFS class during her final quarter at Cal Poly and is currently applying for the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant program in Argentina.
“This class really helped me articulate my passions. Before, I had always viewed my different volunteer positions and extracurriculars as fragmented pieces, but putting them together made me realize everything is interconnected. It helped me realize what kind of fellowships I might want to apply to while grounding me in who I am as a person.
When I was in high school, I did a foreign exchange program to Costa Rica. Being able to experience language immersion like that made me wonder why we can’t make those programs more accessible to everyone. I definitely feel this calling and this passion to try to create more of those cultural immersion experiences, and I thought the English Teaching Assistant program would be the perfect gateway.
The whole process of opening yourself up to possibility is valuable. One of our first assignments was researching different fellowships out there, and I remember the first thing I felt was impostor syndrome. I thought there was no way the Fulbright program would accept me. But over the next 10 weeks we all slowly gained the confidence to realize that we all have really compelling stories.
It’s just a matter of recognizing that within yourself and then being able to articulate that for others. Regardless of whether you get accepted into one of these programs or not, self-reflection is so valuable.”
Learn more about NIFS through the Academic Advising website.
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