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Title	Svetlana Istrati Receives Daniel B. Woodruff Memorial Scholarship
Message	USD undergraduate student Svetlana Istrati has been named the Fall 2007 recipient of the Daniel B. Woodruff Memorial Scholarship. In permanent tribute to USD graduate Daniel Woodruff, the Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate established the award in 2000 to honor the most outstanding student pursuing real estate as a career profession. Woodruff died of cancer at the age of 27, less than two years after graduating from USD. Each semester the scholarship is awarded to a student who best epitomizes Woodruff's positive qualities of "academic excellence, warmth, determination, intellectual curiosity, and unabashed love for humankind." Istrati is the 14th student to receive the scholarship, which carries with it a $2,000 award. Istrati, from the country of Moldova, graduates in May 2008 with a bachelor's degree in Business Administration. Istrati first came to the United States two years ago through an academic exchange program at the European School of Economics in Milan, where she was a student. After two semesters at San Diego State University, Istrati transferred to the University of San Diego. Due to the difficulty in obtaining travel visas from Moldova, Istrati had never been to the United States before starting school here in the fall of 2005. Istrati, who speaks six languages, will graduate with enough credits to have emphases in international business, marketing and finance and maintains a 3.94 GPA. She says that receiving the scholarship came at a good time for her and provided a needed confidence boost as she tries to discern her career path. "I think I'm in a quarter-life crisis now — I don't know what to do with my life," she says. "There are so many options, and I want to do the right thing." Upon graduation, Istrati plans on moving either to San Francisco or New York to pursue a career in real estate or finance. Coming from a country where career paths are limited, Istrati finds the task of choosing a career direction a bit daunting, "America has so many things to offer, and that makes it more difficult," she says. "When you have more choices, it's more difficult to make a choice. Had I stayed home, and not even moved away, I would probably be happy, be married and have a family. There's not much to think about. You accept it and try to make the best out of it. Here, when you have so many options, it becomes more difficult to actually make a decision." In addition to her schoolwork, Istrati is on a salsa dancing team, Majesty in Motion, and took part in USD's Thanksgiving House project last semester. Istrati's current goals include finding a job and learning to play the piano.
Contact	Jeryldine Tully \| jtully@sandiego.edu \| 619-260-4786