Names of the students of next year’s Near and Mitra program were broadcasted on the TV screens located in Shah and Main last Friday.

Near scholars include juniors Zarek Drozda, Shannon Hong, Jasmine Liu, Sadhika Malladi and Sahana Narayanan, and Mitra scholars include juniors Kaitlyn “Kaity” Gee, Elisabeth Siegel, Natalie Simonian and Kavya Ramakrishnan.

Out of 24 applicants, only nine were selected.

“Actually getting in is somewhat competitive,” Zarek said. “I was very happy, ecstatic about the research going forward, and I’m really looking forward to working with Mr. Lepler on this project.”

The application process required students to fill out an online form, and write an essay and paragraph about the topic students chose, why they want the grant, previous experience in historical research and the name of the history teacher who would recommend the student. Each student receives two or three mentors who choose them. One of those includes a librarian for research and citation aid.

“It was pretty intense; there was quite a few essays, a paragraph we had to write,” Sahana said. “We had to demonstrate our budding interest in the humanities and humanities research.”

Students in Near study topics exclusively related to U.S. History while Mitra is for topics outside of that, such as European History.

Natalie plans on researching how the public perceive Marie Antoinette and Alexandra Feodorovna and how their view of the queens added to the hatred towards the royal family.

“What I also want to do is to reevaluate those views [and] how those views might be narrow minded and might be misinterpreted,” she said. “You always hear about Marie Antoinette being scandalous and out of her depth, and then Alexandra, obviously, with her Rasputin.”

Sahana’s topic centers on the influence of B-pop jazz in the 1940s on black American scholars and the equal rights movement.

“It’s kind of bridging both the political, literary and music world in the 1940s, which I’m excited about,” she said. “I’ve always loved music, and I think I just wanted the unique opportunity to do something that incorporated all those interests, however how disparate they are.”

The time commitment requires students to work for 200 hours over the next year.

“I think I will be fine with handling any stress that comes with the project,” Zarek said. “Certainly there’s going to be a lot of research to be done but I’m still looking forward to it nonetheless.”

The Near and Mitra scholars will start doing the bulk of their research over the summer in order to be prepared for the next school year.