For immediate release:

17-year-old CSULA Student Spends
Year Abroad at Oxford University

Los Angeles, CA – While most 17-year-olds are finishing their senior years of high school and preparing for college, Cal State L.A. student Paisley Kadison (Beverly Hills) will be spending one year at Oxford University’s study abroad program, studying English language and literature. Based on her strong GPA and outstanding leadership abilities, she was accepted by Oxford’s prestigious St. Edmund Hall, which admits only several visiting students from around the world annually.

At the age of 13, Kadison entered Cal State L.A.’s Early Entrance Program (EEP), a unique program that admits extraordinarily gifted youngsters—some as young as 11—directly into college, providing the early entrants with monitored evaluation, regular counseling sessions, and the opportunity to study with like-minded peers.

Kadison began her university career as a pre-med biology major, but she later decided to change to English in order to pursue a law degree. With a passion in the humanities, Kadison’s study focuses primarily on the medieval and renaissance periods.

Kadison is thrilled by the opportunity to study at such a renowned learning institution as Oxford. “It’s going to be an amazing experience studying in such a historic setting,” she says. “It will be inspiring to meet the professors at Oxford who have written the textbooks we’ve used in my classes at Cal State L.A.”

Her interest in attending Oxford was ignited when her grandfather—a Rhodes Scholar there 50 years ago—took her on a tour of the college town and showed it to her “from a student’s point of view.” With encouragement from her CSULA professors, Kadison vigorously pursued the opportunity to spend a year abroad.

During her time at CSULA, Kadison has been actively involved in extracurricular activities, serving as president of the General Education Honors Program, which provides highly qualified students with enriched intellectual activities through a separate curriculum which includes Honors classes, seminars, and research. She also volunteers at numerous places, including at a thrift store that caters to low-income families, and making blankets for premature babies.

In a letter of recommendation, CSULA professor of speech communication David Olsen wrote, “Both in and outside of the classroom, Paisley consistently surpassed my highest expectations, challenging those around her with her questions and answers and warming others with her spirit and maturity.”

Kadison will begin the fall semester at Oxford in early October, living in St. Edmund Hall housing for the school year. Next fall, she will return to Cal State L.A. to complete her B.A. in English.

Working for California since 1947: The 175-acre hilltop campus of California State University, Los Angeles is at the heart of a major metropolitan city, just five miles from Los Angeles’ civic and cultural center. More than 20,000 students and 185,000 alumni—with a wide variety of interests, ages and backgrounds--reflect the city’s dynamic mix of populations. Six colleges offer nationally recognized science, arts, business, criminal justice, engineering, nursing, education and humanities programs, among others, led by an award-winning faculty. Cal State L.A. is home to the critically-acclaimed Luckman Jazz Orchestra and to a unique university center for gifted students as young as 12. Among programs that provide exciting enrichment opportunities to students and community include a noted alternative energy technology initiative; an NEH- and Rockefeller-supported humanities center; a NASA-funded center for space research; and a growing forensic science program, to be housed in the Los Angeles Regional Crime Lab now under construction. www.calstatela.edu

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