Tom Nelson is taking another step toward his goal of joining the U.S. Foreign Service as he heads to the Middle East or North Africa to study Arabic on a prestigious State Department Critical Language Scholarship.

The French and political science major has built an impressive set of credentials already. He was governor of the Maryland Student Legislature, co-head of the McDaniel Model U.N. delegation and participated in the Model European Union and North Africa Conferences. Nelson is fluent in French and studied in Brussels at Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis, where all of his classes were taught in French.