Richter Scholarship Program

The Richter Scholar awards are available for graduate and undergraduate students for the purpose of globally-oriented independent study in foreign countries.

Students are encouraged to pursue enriching, broadening projects that have the promise of being life-changing. To enrich the independent study experience, each student is required to have a faculty mentor for their project.

Here is an example of a great project done by Kgosi Hughes (’23).

• The Richter Scholarship awards up to $6,000 to cover travel and living expenses. Students must develop a budget as part of their application.
• Due to the number of eligible applicants and limited scholarship funding, students may only receive the Richter Scholars award once.
• Applications require mentorship from a Wake Forest University faculty mentor during the development and completion of the project.
• Richter Scholarships are NOT designed to support credit-bearing “study abroad” programs, and therefore do not provide tuitions or fees to other institutions may be made with Richter funds.
• Richter Scholarships do not support equipment costs (e.g., cameras) or collaborator expenses (e.g., translators, consultants).
• Awardees are required to take INS 150 (details in accordion below in the FAQ), a one-credit pass-fail course during the second half of the Spring semester, to support their cross-cultural experience

Scholars will be selected based on the following criteria: feasibility of the project, contribution of the project to the overall education and enrichment of the student, commitment of the student and faculty advisor to the project, and the student’s demonstrated ability to initiate and sustain creative activities and research. While there is no absolute grade point criterion, successful applicants must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0. Students must be in good standing with the University.

While the Richter Program encourages student to pursue international projects, proposals that focus on “touring”, rather than exploring a topic in-depth, will receive lower priority as will enrollment in a standard course of program. Individually conceived and executed projects are encouraged. Richter Scholars may receive credit toward honors projects and/or individual study projects supported by their Richter grant but Richter funding shall not be applied toward course tuition or course fees for which a student receives credit. The duration of successful projects normally ranges from 3-6 weeks.