At a family Christmas party in Bermuda with over 40 guests close by, College senio David Ferreira was anticipating what would be one of the most important phone calls of his life.
The call was from the secretary of the Rhodes Trust in Bermuda, awarding him Bermuda's only Rhodes Scholarship, which is given out every year.
Ferreira is the first international Penn student to be named an international Rhodes Scholar.
Born in Bermuda and a legal Bermudan citizen, Ferreira moved to England with his family at the age of 8, where he attended boarding school while his parents attended law school.
His family's original plan was to move back to Bermuda after both parents graduated from law school, but their plans changed after Ferreira's father passed away in 1993 and Ferreira remained in England, where he attended Eton College.
"I knew that I wanted to go to law school after I finished at Penn and it didn't make sense for me to stay in the U.S. since Bermuda has British law," said Ferreira, a PPE major who plans to follow in his parents' footsteps and study law at Oxford.
"So if I want to move back to Bermuda and study law there, I'm going to have to have a British law degree," he added.
The coveted scholarship is awarded by the Rhodes Scholarship Trust, established in 1902 by Cecil John Rhodes' will.
Winners are chosen based on academic excellence as well as extracurricular achievements, of which athletic achievement is a part.
After applications are reviewed, finalists are chosen and brought in for interviewing.
Ferreira said his emotions were fairly calm going into the interview.
"It's weird, I said to my mother, 'I'm not nervous,'" Ferreira said. "I was thinking it would be great if I could get it, but I wasn't pinning all my hopes on it. I felt that I just really had to be myself at the interview and that's really all I could do."
The Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships facilitated Ferreira's sucess, preparing him for both the application and interview process.
"They were amazing," Ferreira said of the center.
CURF Director Art Casciato said he was overjoyed for Ferreira.
"He made my holidays!" Casciato said. "I was happiest first and foremost for David, but I was also happy for international students at Penn who after David's success might follow his example and apply for the Rhodes and other awards in the future."
Although Ferreira was awarded the presitgious honor, he still remains grounded and humbled by the experience.
"When they told me they'd decided to pick me as a scholar, I couldn't believe it," Ferreira said. "I just sort of stood there staring at my mother who was looking back at me. I guess I just walked around the rest of the night numb."
Part of what crafted Ferreira into a winning candidate was his athletic abilities, which vary from cricket to golf to skiing.
He has played on national cricket teams in Bermuda and has been invited this summer to play on Bermuda's squad in the World Cup qualifying matches.
When describing Ferreira's character, Casciato said he felt that Ferreira stood out among the other candidates.
"The best way to describe David Ferreira is 'thoughtful,' in the richest sense of the word," Casciato said. "Given this kind of thoughtfulness, as well as his obvious and broad athletic ability, I'm not the least bit surprised that the selection committee chose David from among the 10 or so finalists for Bermuda's Rhodes Scholarship for 2004."
Ferreira's friend, Wharton senior Will Deng, expressed similar sentiments.
"Honestly, I wasn't very surprised when David won," Deng said. "I've always known him as a very intelligent person. He's almost like a modern Renaissance man."
