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Story by Logan Jackson
The German Academic Excellence Service (DAAD) Master Studies for All Academic Disciplines scholarship program provides funding for students to pursue postgraduate or master’s degrees at universities across Germany. For Charles Wigton, the award is going to allow him to be a step closer to his goal of earning a PhD in clinical psychology.
“It was extremely exciting to receive the DAAD scholarship!” said Wigton, a senior psychological sciences major who is also pursuing the Honors College Certificate. “I spent a lot of time and effort working with the amazing staff in the Mizzou Office of Global and National Fellowships, including Erik Potter and Nina Wilson-Keenan, to produce a competitive application for this award.”
“Charles is a brilliant scholar whose remarkable intellect is paired with a number of personal qualities that will lead to a career as a psychologist who asks deep questions, integrates research areas and improves the lives of others. His remarkable energy, infectious enthusiasm and willingness to take intellectual and interpersonal risks set him apart from other smart, hardworking people. He is a dynamic presence in the world; someone who is unafraid to share his ideas, to learn from others and to reveal what he doesn’t know because he just delights in the learning process. Charles has demonstrated persistence, self-motivation and just a remarkable creative engagement in science.”
Laura King, a Curators’ Distinguished Professor of psychological sciences, Wigton’s faculty mentor at Mizzou
Wigton has done plenty of work at Mizzou to prepare him for those next steps. He served as a neuroscience research assistant for Nicholas Gaspelin, an associate professor of psychological sciences, where he used MATLAB programming and eye-tracking software to collect data from study participants. Wigton also worked as a mindfulness meditation instructor.
He is currently working to complete his honors capstone project through the Department of Psychological Sciences. That work includes an independent research project, titled Mindfulness and Meaning: Exploring Mechanisms. Wigton received a Mizzou Forward Undergraduate Research Training Grant for the project.
“Charles is a brilliant scholar whose remarkable intellect is paired with a number of personal qualities that will lead to a career as a psychologist who asks deep questions, integrates research areas and improves the lives of others,” said Laura King, a Curators’ Distinguished Professor of psychological sciences. “His remarkable energy, infectious enthusiasm and willingness to take intellectual and interpersonal risks set him apart from other smart, hardworking people. He is a dynamic presence in the world; someone who is unafraid to share his ideas, to learn from others and to reveal what he doesn’t know because he just delights in the learning process. Charles has demonstrated persistence, self-motivation and just a remarkable creative engagement in science.”
The DAAD Master Studies for All Academic Disciplines scholarship program is funded by the German Federal Foreign Office. Within the master’s program that Wigton will be part of is an internship that includes more than 300 hours of field work. He said that work will focus on psychoanalysis, something not as commonly studied in the United States.
“I think that some of the greatest growth I have experienced has been outside of the traditional classroom setting,” Wigton said. “One of the best things you can do is to connect with others who know more about your field than you do and to learn directly from them. This has served me very well throughout my undergraduate career.”