By Dave Johnson
W&M Athletics

Standing out at a place like William & Mary doesn't come easy. The second-oldest college in the nation has educated U.S. presidents, Supreme Court justices, astronauts, business leaders, award-winning actors and two current NFL head coaches.

Yet Alek Kuzmenchuk's resume indeed stands out. Internships with the U.S. Department of State and Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Editor-in-Chief of The Monitor. Selected for the Pamela Harriman Foreign Service Fellowship and Phi Beta Kappa … all while competing on the men's gymnastics team and maintaining a 3.98 GPA.

Since last updating his LinkedIn page, which fortunately does not charge him by the word, Kuzmenchuk was chosen as the student-athlete speaker at the NCAA Championship banquet. And, most recently, he was accepted to the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program.

"I keep saying Alek will be an ambassador or something similar one day," W&M gymnastics coach Mike Powell said.

Kuzmenchuk describes himself as a "nerd." Yet there's nothing uncool about having a passion for the globe, even (maybe especially) areas you may never visit.

"A lot of this stuff is just genuinely fun to me," said Kuzmenchuk, who will graduate this weekend with a B.A. in international relations. "It's all very interesting to me, and I'm just grateful to have this opportunity."

Given his background, Kuzmenchuk sees it as natural that he gravitated toward international relations.

His mother, Amisha Pandya, was born in India and came to the U.S. with her family when she was 2. His father, Sergei Kuzmenchuk, is from Belarus and arrived in the States as a graduate student.

Growing up in Maryland, Kuzmenchuk took to gymnastics at 3. He wanted to continue the sport in college, which narrowed the field. There were and remain only 15 NCAA colleges that sponsor men's gymnastics.

"Actually, I had very little awareness of William & Mary until probably halfway through the recruiting cycle," he said. "When I came here and walked around campus and met all the guys, I just felt like this was my place."

Another plus for W&M: '84 alumnus (and former Tribe soccer player) Jon Stewart. Kuzmenchuk is a fan of his political commentary.

"That made it pretty much a lock," he said.

In four seasons with the Tribe's gymnastics team, he was a "staple," as Powell put it, in the ring and parallel bar lineup. He competed in multiple events in the NCAA Championship each spring.

Although Kuzmenchuk had long been interested in politics and foreign policy, his original plan was to major in chemistry at W&M. But one thing led to another.

"I guess it must have been the (2020) election cycle," he said. "I was watching the news and eventually moved closer to politics.

"And once I was in the realm of politics, I got way more interested in international politics. That's basically what I talk about at home."

Belarus is bordered by Russia to the east and Ukraine to the south. Although Belarus' government supported Russia's invasion of Ukraine, only 33% of its citizens agreed, according to a Chatham House survey last spring.

"We talk a lot about the current state of politics there," Alek said. "My dad gets very passionate, which makes me want to learn more about it.

"My Indian family loves to debate, and 90% of the time they're debating Indian politics. They get passionate also."

In his four years at William & Mary, there would be little downtime. In 2022, he did his first of three internships with the Department of State. That, he said, was "eye-opening." He was then chosen for a Pamela Harriman Fellowship, which goes to four student interns nationally each year.

He spent last summer in India, his mother's native land, on a Critical Language Scholarship from the State Department.

"They send you to a country to learn a language that is critical to U.S. national security interests or diplomatic interests," he said. "India is a big one now because it's growing. I had never been to India, and I thought it would be nice to see it."

Kuzmenchuk went with a very basic understanding of Hindi, one of the country's two official languages (with English), but that got stronger over the three month-program there. He has an elementary knowledge of Gujarati, which is spoken in the western state of Gujarat, and is nearly fluent in Russian and Spanish.

In three months, he will serve an internship with the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in D.C. He will report to Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, his home state. Then, with little time to recharge his battery, back to India to research a project he designed with his Fulbright grant.

"The idea is to conduct interviews and understand the political and civilizational ethos of India," he said. "I'd like to go around the country interviewing different sorts of people. I got to experience a little bit of that last summer because we had some free travel weekends, but it was so frenetic.

"I'd much rather just take the train and talk to people while doing research. I'm not sure how it will be, but I hope I'll be traveling and based in the capital (New Delhi)."

Because he'll be in India for nine months, Kuzmenchuk had to delay a job he landed with Accenture Federal Services until next summer. As for what he sees himself doing five, ten years down the road ... well, stay tuned.

"I'm not sure what I'm looking at career wise," he said. "I'd like to go back to school."

There's always more in this world to learn.