OHS Student Receives German Scholarship, Expenses-Paid Trip to Germany

Anna Grace Usery
Editor-in-chief
anna.grace.usery@hottytoddy.com
Oxford High School student Sydney Rester recently returned to Mississippi from an all-expenses-paid study abroad trip to Germany.

Rester tested in the 92nd percentile on the highest level of the 2018 National German Exam for High School Students. After scoring so well, she submitted responses in German to several essay questions and then interviewed with a committee comprised of high school teachers and college professors of German.
She was one of five high school students in the nation to receive the 2018 American Association of Teachers of German Endowment Fund Scholarship supported by German teachers in the U.S. who want to promote studying in Germany. Rester stayed with a host family in Leipzig.
She said before she went to Germany she was excited to improve her spoken German and experience a new culture.
“While I was there, I saw first-hand how being in the GDR affected Leipzig’s culture, even today,” she said. “I also experienced their school system. My particular school’s emphasis was math and science. They mostly focused on improving skill and application. For example, after learning physics one got to go to an engineering lab on campus and apply what was taught in the class through a project.”
Rester’s plan is to major in biomedical engineering in college, she said.
“It’s an interdisciplinary field that combines medicine and engineering,” she said. “My career options are to work as a researcher to help improve and design medical technology, or work in a hospital where I would help implement that technology.”
Her mother, Audra Rester, who is the principal of Oxford Middle School, said her and her husband Eddie’s initial reaction to learning Sydney received the scholarship was one of excitement.
“Eddie and I believe the trip has helped develop a sense of independence as well as an appreciation of another culture,” she said. “She now has a different perspective of the world.”
Sydney Rester is a student of Stefanie Beam, who is the German teacher at Oxford High School.
“The selection committee found the achievements of this year’s recipients quite outstanding and was particularly impressed with their many accomplishments and enthusiasm for German,” said Keith Cothrun, Executive Director of the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG). “Our scholarship fund gives students the chance to experience Germany firsthand and forge strong connections with the people of Germany. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity for the recipient and assures a better world for us all.”

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