{"id":4751,"date":"2019-03-06T19:02:50","date_gmt":"2019-03-06T15:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/?p=4751"},"modified":"2019-03-06T19:03:31","modified_gmt":"2019-03-06T15:03:31","slug":"how-being-an-athlete-can-get-you-a-scholarship-in-dubai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/how-being-an-athlete-can-get-you-a-scholarship-in-dubai\/","title":{"rendered":"How Being an Athlete Can Get You a Scholarship in Dubai"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Your performance and experience in a team sport can really improve your life, as was the case for Bojana Mitrovic and Uro\u0161 Lalic. Both from Serbia, they are currently studying at the American University in Dubai on full sport-scholarships and are captains of their volleyball teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bojana Mitrovic is 24-years-old currently studying to attain her masters degree in Leadership and Innovation in Contemporary Media here at AUD. Mitrovic is from Novi Sad, which is where she first started competing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bojana Mitrovic mid spike, 20 February 2019. Photo by Mayar Ibrahim<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

She first started playing volleyball at the age of 12 but by the age of 15 she was playing in the highest league in Serbia within the Vojvodina team. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the age of 17 I have signed my first professional contract for Volleyball team Spartak and was fighting for the country title,\u201d Mitrovic explained her experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She got her bachelor\u2019s degree in Mass Communications at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in America, where she played for the volleyball for three years. After graduating from UTRGV, she looked for a masters program. However, AUD\u2019s Sports Director Joseph Nohra found videos of her playing volleyball, approached her and offered a full sports-scholarship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cComing to Dubai was completely new experience, I had a culture shock just by being at the airport,\u201d Mitrovic said about her first impression of Dubai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After coming to AUD she was anointed captain of the women\u2019s volleyball team by Coach Dmitriy Vdovin, due to her previous experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was a captain for three years in the USA in my team, so I do have experience in this role,\u201d  Mitrovic said. \u201cHowever, I was sceptic if the girls here will accept it considering the fact I was new in the team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Uro\u0161 Lalic Photo by Mayar Ibrahim<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Uro\u0161 Lalic\u2019s case is relatively the same as Mitrovic\u2019s. He is 20-years-old from Belgrade, currently studying to gain his bachelors degree in Business at AUD. He started playing volleyball when he was 12-years-old due to the influence of his older brother. He started playing for a club called Crnjanski where he learned the basic skills of volleyball. He then moved on to a volleyball club called Red Star in Serbia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was captain of Belgrade\u2019s national team and we won a championship in Croatia,\u201d Lalic said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lalic first wanted to study abroad in America but when AUD offered him a full sports-scholarship he accepted the offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFirstly, it was interesting because of the differences in culture, environment, and mentality here,\u201d Lalic said as he explained how it felt moving to Dubai. \u201cIt was the first time that I\u2019ve been separated from my family but with time I realized that Dubai offers plenty opportunities.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lalic was also anointed as captain of the men\u2019s volleyball team by Coach Dmitriy Vdovin at the start of the academic year in Fall 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt really is a pleasure but it is also a big responsibility to lead the team,\u201d Lalic said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBoth teams have significantly improved under the leadership\u201d of Lalic and Mitrovic, Coach Dmitriy said. \u201cUro\u0161 and Bojana are doing an amazing job, they really are core players of their teams.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your performance and experience in a team sport can really improve your life, as was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19,35],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4751"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4751"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4758,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4751\/revisions\/4758"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}