O.C. Woman Wins Rhodes Scholarship

A Mission Viejo woman whose high school studies of the former Soviet Union turned into a fascination with the broken region will get a chance to explore it in depth as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University.

Jennie S. Han, 22, was among three Californians named Sunday as Rhodes scholars for 2000.

Han, a senior at Yale University, learned that she received the prestigious international study award Saturday and said she’s still stunned that she was among the 32 American students chosen.

“It’s a lot to absorb,” said Han, who will graduate this month with a bachelor’s degree in political science. “I thought it was great. Everyone was sort of shocked for a while.”

In fact, her parents were so surprised, Jennie Han said, that “they asked me whether there was some mistake.”

Han’s mother, Laura, explained: “I heard that it was so hard to get in. We just didn’t expect that.”

The family moved to Mission Viejo earlier this year from Claremont, where Jennie Han graduated from high school in 1995.

“[We’re] so proud of her,” Laura Han said.

The Rhodes program is intensely competitive and attracts top students from around the world.

This year’s American entries were judged from 935 applicants representing 323 colleges and universities. With the 2000 class, 2,886 Americans have won Rhodes scholarships, including President Clinton in 1968 and presidential hopeful and former Sen. Bill Bradley in 1966.

The caliber of previous Rhodes scholars convinced Jennie Han she didn’t have a chance. “I went into it assuming I wouldn’t get it,” she said.

Now, Han is planning to leave in October for two years of study at Oxford University in England. She has applied to the Master of Letters program and will study the Muslim states of the former Soviet Union.

“I started studying the region in high school right after the fall of the Soviet Union,” she said. “You hear about the different cultures there, and that spurred me to do reading on my own.”

Han said she continued studying the region in college and spent a summer in Uzbekistan.

“The region involves artistic and social and political issues that have all been thrown together into one concentrated part of the world,” she said. “The way the dynamics are in each of these spheres--it’s something we don’t see in the West.”

When Han returns to the United States, she hopes to pursue a master’s and doctorate in international relations and philosophy and eventually teach at a university.

The two other Californians named Rhodes scholars are Melissa Sturm of Chatsworth and Elisha B. Peterson of Oakhurst.

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Sturm is a 21-year-old violinist and paratrooper at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Art and Linda Sturm say their daughter has been an overachiever since she began learning how to play a pint-sized violin using the Suzuki method.

Sturm attended Portola Middle School, North Hollywood High School and for her final two years, Taft High.

In 1996, Sturm was granted a commission to West Point where she founded a string quartet, joined the judo team and became a paratrooper.

“She always did what really interested her whether it was hard or not,” Linda Sturm said. “She always did what she would learn more from and never took the easy route.”

Melissa Sturm plans to spend two years completing her master’s in Oriental Studies of the Modern Middle East, according to her mother. Beyond that she has a five-year commitment to the Army, her family said.

The Rhodes program was established in 1902 by the will of British philanthropist and colonialist Cecil Rhodes, who hoped that his plan to bring students to Oxford--his alma mater--would promote international understanding and peace.