College of Liberal Arts
Texas Athletics
Ukrainian Athlete Overcomes and Inspires
Sabina Zeynalova often reflects on her freshman season playing tennis at UT Austin. It concluded with a national championship and a blistering 23-1 singles record for the native of Kyiv, Ukraine — but that’s not what she remembers.
On February 24, 2022, while she prepared for a match against Stanford, Russia invaded Ukraine.
“There was no reason to worry about a grade in a class or losing a match on a tennis court,” she said. “It’s negligible compared to what I was worrying about: trying to figure out if my parents could safely drive from Kyiv to Poland.”
Zeynalova played and won, but her stunning record won’t reveal the toll it took on her to compete at the highest collegiate level in a new country while family and friends were in peril 6,000 miles away.
“What’s taking me further is facing life as it is, embracing everything that happens while still being kind to myself. I am self-sufficient now. That’s something that I learned at UT. I’ve also learned that I am enough. It’s a kind of self-confidence I’ve never had before.”
— Sabina Zeynalova, Class of '25, Psychology
“That’s when I learned to appreciate the things in life that are important,” Zeynalova said. “Nothing else matters when your family is in danger.”
The mental and physical effects of this stress would riddle her sophomore season with doubts and injuries. Then, in 2022, Zeynalova opened up about an eating disorder she was experiencing.
She considered it a blessing to be at UT Austin during this time, as she began attending frequent therapy sessions and meetings with dietitians and specialists.
By her junior year in 2023, Zeynalova had struck a balance on and off the court that allowed her to find peace, build confidence, and become the happiest she’d ever been. Read More
International Athletes
2022 - 2023
52
INTERNATIONAL STUDENT ATHLETES
23
DIFFERENT COUNTRIES
2023 - 2024
59
INTERNATIONAL STUDENT ATHLETES
27
DIFFERENT COUNTRIES
Texas Global
University Housing and Dining
Global Living Learning Community Fosters International Friendships
The initial days at a university the size of UT Austin can feel daunting, especially for international students arriving from hundreds or even thousands of miles away from home.
That’s what sparked UT Austin’s Global Living Learning Community, a unique collaboration between Texas Global and University Housing and Dining, which promotes intercultural competency and communication among its residents by forming intimate communities of international and U.S. students living together.
Campbell Stuart, international program coordinator at Texas Global, said Global Living’s small, close-knit cohort of fewer than 50 students is a standout feature, especially compared to other residential options on campus.
“A smaller cohort allows these students to feel a closer sense of community and welcome when they first arrive on campus,” Stuart said.
“International students are able to experience life in the U.S. alongside domestic students who know the ins and outs, and also with fellow international students who may be having a similar experience.”
Not only are residents urged to forge connections within close quarters, but Global Living also encourages students to participate in dinners, discussions, faculty mentorships, and social events offered on campus. And to promote intercultural learning, the dorm employs a pairing system, in which international students are matched with U.S. students as roommates to further facilitate cultural exchange between peers.
These strategies offer Global Living residents many opportunities to form intimate friendships to support them in enriching residential experiences and forming global connections that last beyond the Forty Acres. Read More
“Global Living is all [about] the unexpected things you’ll learn from your roommate and neighbors, and building those worldwide connections.”
— Camila Pozo, Residential Assistant, Global Living Learning Community
Cockrell School of Engineering
First-Gen Student Pursues Education Across Europe
After experiencing study abroad in three different countries, mechanical engineering student Jacqueline Villalobos is building her career on foundations that stretch across the globe.
Villalobos’ parents emigrated from Chihuahua, Mexico, to El Paso, Texas, where she was born and grew up. Villalobos knew she wanted to study abroad, but there was plenty she didn’t know as a first-generation college student.
After submitting scholarship applications and consulting the International Engineering Education (IEE) unit at the Cockrell School of Engineering, Villalobos earned an IEE scholarship to participate in a 2019 research internship in France.
In 2022, she secured a Gilman Scholarship for an exchange semester at Delft University of Technology, a world-renowned engineering school in the Netherlands. After a successful first semester, Villalobos was determined to extend her studies there through the entire year — a commitment that won her a $10,000 scholarship from Cockrell.
Again, she built on her success, parlaying the year at Delft into a subsequent semester at the Technical University of Denmark in Copenhagen.
During these experiences, Villalobos realized each new endeavor overseas made available curricula, lab experiences, and research opportunities she might not have accessed in the United States.
“At these top engineering schools with which we have exchange agreements, there are many courses not offered at UT,” said IEE director Helena Wilkins-Versalovic. “Jackie has made full use of her study abroad potential, doing what we hope many of our engineering students will do: use study abroad to enhance their UT degrees.” Read More
“You always learn something when you study abroad, and those things are always life-changing. You become more open, compassionate, culturally intelligent and, I think, kinder.”
— Jacqueline Villalobos, Class of ’23, Mechanical Engineering
Office of Admissions
Texas Global
Take the World by the Horns Launches Unforgettable Experiences for Freshmen
Take the World by the Horns is a once-in-a- lifetime opportunity for incoming students to launch their college careers abroad during their first semester. The 2024-2025 pilot program began with locations in Copenhagen, Denmark; Panama City, Panama; and Seoul, South Korea.
Longhorns in their first semester of college earned 12 credit hours with intensive coursework and experiential learning. Each program location engages a theme — health and well-being, energy and the environment, or technology and society — with learning opportunities provided in the classroom and during immersive cultural excursions.
Sharing the unique adventure of learning abroad galvanizes students to build meaningful relationships among their globally minded peers, with the cohort model building upon these connections throughout their time at UT Austin.
Most importantly, students develop intercultural competencies and language skills, jump-starting their academic careers and preparing them for professional success in the global marketplace. Read More
“I have always wanted to study abroad to broaden my perspective through hands-on experience and cultural exchange. Take the World by the Horns will enhance my academic interests beyond the classroom and my capability to tackle real-life challenges outside the country, shaping my college career with experiential learning.”
— Trang Tran, Class of ’28, Communication and Leadership
Texas Global
Global Career Launch Expands Professional Knowledge
Texas Global partnered with Podium Education to offer the UT Austin Global Career Accelerator, expanding internships available in the Global Career Launch portfolio. This virtual experience equips students with marketable skills and intercultural competencies, preparing Longhorns for high-growth careers in the global economy.
Available to undergraduates from all majors and backgrounds, the program offers four innovative tracks: digital marketing, coding for web, data analytics, and coding for data. Each track satisfies six credit hours in the summer and three in the fall, combining insights from industry experts, client simulations, skills training, and synchronous lab sessions.
Students from more than 50 countries work online in small groups, collaborating to execute projects for global businesses such as Uber, Spotify, Google, Netflix, Airbnb, Shopify, and many more. Upon completion of the single-semester internship, participants gain access to a network of job and internship opportunities at leading organizations across more than 20 industries. Read More
“I think the most rewarding aspect has been finishing the first milestone project, since I was truly able to see where my work had gotten me. It will showcase my ability for specific, industry-relevant skills and how I can apply them to real-world projects.”
— Sanchit Singhal, Class of ’27, Computational Engineering
Graduate School
School of Law
College of Liberal Arts
LBJ School of Public Affairs
Master’s Student Tracks Migration with Brumley Fellowship
Master’s student Pedro Valdez-Castro was awarded a Brumley NextGen Fellowship by the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. The fellowship program provides a transformative experience for UT graduate students from an array of disciplines, building professional skills and accelerating their paths toward career success.
Valdez-Castro is a second-year master’s student working at the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies and a Fulbright Faculty Development grantee. During the 2023–2024 academic year, he developed a research project within the Strauss Center’s Central America and Mexico Policy Initiative.
“My research project focuses on the routes Afro-Caribbean migrants draw as they move from their home countries to South America and then to the U.S.,” said Valdez-Castro. “I am particularly interested in how the policies implemented in the different transit countries impact migrant journeys and how migrants experience them subjectively.”
Valdez-Castro’s research interests include international migration, borders, the Caribbean, the sociology of migration, Afro- Latin America, and interculturality. He has engaged in teaching, research, policymaking, and community development around topics including human trafficking, border management, intercultural education, and migrant integration.
Prior to coming to UT Austin in 2022, he worked as a migration studies and research analyst at the National Institute of Migration of the Dominican Republic, researching and developing policy proposals to advise the Dominican state on issues related to migration governance. Outside his academic activities, Valdez-Castro volunteers at Casa Marianella, a shelter in Austin that welcomes and assists displaced migrants. Read More
School of Law
Egyptian Law Student Recognized for Civil Rights Advocacy
Texas Law student Sondos Moursy grew up in Louisiana and Texas. But as a Muslim immigrant from Alexandria, Egypt, she often felt her family’s Islamic values conflicted with the Western lifestyle. This produced an uncommon perspective on issues of human rights and fueled her determination to help marginalized communities.
These pursuits came full circle in 2023 when Moursy was named a Marshall-Motley Scholar by the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund for her work championing economic opportunities for formerly incarcerated people of color.
“I’m really passionate about furthering this work in carceral justice, and the Marshall- Motley program supports that,” Moursy said. “To keep growing, this work takes funding. I can just focus on doing the work because somebody else paid for it. That in itself is the biggest privilege.”
Each year, 10 student applicants from around the U.S. are awarded full tuition plus funding to cover room and board. Following graduation, they complete two-year postgraduate fellowships at civil rights law organizations in the American South and attend trainings with the Legal Defense Fund and National Academy of Sciences. In return, they commit the first eight years of their practice to civil rights law on behalf of Black communities in the South.
“It was validation that I am not screaming into a void, that my work has some sort of impact, and somebody on this earth recognizes that enough to support it,” said Moursy, who chose Texas Law for its number of legal clinics and pro bono projects specifically focused on carceral justice. Read More
College of Liberal Arts
Polish Club Founder Graduates to International Stage
Longhorn Nathan Silverstein came to UT Austin from Los Angeles, but his heart beats in Poland. He remains connected with his heroic ancestors as well as the current-day Polish community fighting to secure democracy. Silverstein is the founder of UT’s Polish Club, which for more than three years has brought political luminaries from Poland and Eastern Europe to speak at UT.
“I have gained a cultural, historical, and political understanding of Poland so deep that it may have surpassed my understanding of the U.S.,” Silverstein said. “The time I felt most in tune with the Polish people was July 2023, when I attended a 500,000-person pro-democracy protest [and] helped parade a massive Polish flag through the streets of Warsaw. At the time, the demonstration was the largest protest in Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall.”
His tireless work in global engagement earned Silverstein a position as public outreach coordinator for former president of Poland Lech Wałęsa, organizing worldwide speaking events for the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Silverstein’s grandfather, a Polish partisan during World War II who spent eight years fighting, is the motivation for everything he does and lies at the core of his Polish and American identities.
“This story was central to my upbringing and is at the core of my Polish and American identities,” Silverstein said. “It is the most impactful moment in my personal connection to Poland’s history of sacrifice, bravery, and freedom fighting.”
In 2023, Silverstein graduated Phi Beta Kappa with the distinction Cum Laude Ampla et Magna, earning a B.A. in government with a minor in Polish language. Read More
“I’ve learned that college is as much about the experiences you gain and the networks you forge as it is about academics.”
— Nathan Silverstein, Class of ’24, Government
