The International Festival Fulbright Celebration honored Fulbright recipients and applicants in Harper College’s Gressette Room on Thursday.
The Fulbright program funds a year of graduate-level study abroad for students and aims to provide them with an education mindful of international and cultural interactions. This is a competitive opportunity for students interested in pursuing education abroad, jobs in the education field and research and professional projects.
Kati Russ, a fourth-year English student, is a Fulbright applicant who first learned about the program through the honors college and a friend who won a Fulbright Scholarship. Russ applied for an English Teaching Assistant Position (ETA) in Indonesia and said she likes the diverse opportunities the Fulbright program provides to its students.
“While I’m doing the English teaching assistant program, there are research programs, there are service programs, there are creative programs, so you can get involved in so many different ways,” Russ said.
The Fulbright program has a network of scholars, alumni and partners that give students the ability to interact with different communities around the world and the USC community.
“There’s some networking going on, so there are current Fulbright Scholars, who are here doing research in the U.S. or studying in the U.S. There are past Fulbright Scholars, there are people involved with the Fulbright process at USC, so a whole mix of people,” Russ said.
Emily Herd, a fourth-year political science student in the honors college, is a Fulbright applicant interested in education policy and inequities in U.S. education systems versus education systems in other countries. Herd applied for an English teaching assistant position in Estonia with encouragement from her honors thesis director.
“It’s an amazing country, they have very equitable education results, and they don’t spend a whole ton money on it, so it's kind of a weird dichotomy that I wanted to learn more about,” Herd said.
During her application process, Herd said she faced a personal challenge that made her rethink applying. However, she said the support she received through the Office of Fellowship and Advising helped her change her mind.
“My dad was diagnosed with leukemia at the beginning of my application process, so that was very time consuming and I considered not applying any longer, and meanwhile I was still working full-time in D.C.,” Herd said. “The Fellowship Office was very supportive and very encouraging and so I ended up sticking with it and I’m glad that I did."
Francisco Bilchez, a computer science graduate student, is a current Fulbright scholar from Taiwan and described what the Fulbright program represents in his country.
“The idea of the Fulbright program for us, in the country, is to go to the U.S. to share our culture and experience and then bring that experience into benefit for our country, and they’re really supportive of that idea,” Bilchez said.
Bilchez said he believes the Fulbright program has benefited him in a variety of ways, especially in regards to learning about new techniques and methods that are being taught in the computer science field at USC.
“Coming here, I have continued that research with my professors and I can bring that knowledge to the research groups in the university to make connections between researchers, because maybe someone in my country is working on some research and a person here is working that, so we can ask them for help or vice versa,” Bilchez said.
Bilchez said some of the biggest challenges and cultural differences he has faced on his journey was being far away from family and language barriers.
“In my country, my city at least, which is very close, we can walk a couple of blocks and there is like a mall there, you walk two more blocks and there is a park — everything is very close. Here I can go to mall, it would take me an hour maybe, so that was very challenging because I was used to everything really close together,” Bilchez said.
Herd said networking with past and current Fulbright scholars at the Fulbright celebration helped her feel connected.
“It feels almost isolating when you’re just applying and it’s just you, and so getting to talk to other people who have similar interests, similar experiences with the process connects you to more people, which is a very nice feeling,” Herd said.