Katherine Kerschen '06 Gets Fulbright Award to Germany
Posted on: July 27
Katherine Kerschen (SGS '06, Washington Univ. in St. Louis '10) has been awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholarship to Germany to teach English as a foreign language. She is one of over 1,500 U.S. citizens who will travel abroad for the 2010-11 academic year through the Fulbright Program. Katherine joins fellow alum Luca Valle as the second member of the SGS Class of 2006 to be headed overseas on a Fulbright award for the coming year.
"I applied to teach in Germany because German was one of my majors at Wash. U., and I studied abroad in southern Germany the spring semester of my junior year. I absolutely fell in love with the country, the culture and the language and I wanted to seize any opportunity to go back."
"I'll be teaching in a secondary school (grades 5-12) in Dortmund, which is in the western part of Germany," says Katherine, who also hopes to travel throughout Germany to experience its different cultures and dialects. "I'm especially interested in visiting the former East Germany and seeing how it compares to the places in the west that I've been."
The application process to become an English Teaching Assistant took nearly her entire senior year. "Applying for a Fulbright is something you need to think about far in advance and make sure you have enough time to commit to all of the steps," she says.
"Teaching assistants are also expected to engage in the community outside of the classroom, for example by assisting the students in extracurricular activities such as clubs or arts classes as well as searching for ways to connect to groups or organizations outside of the school. I'm planning on seeking out volunteer work at a nonprofit or community center that focuses on issues of immigration and integration."
"I plan to pursue a career as a professor in German and Applied Linguistics or in English as a Second Language instructor in the future," Katherine says. "I think this Fulbright year will be an invaluable experience that will help me immensely to clarify my own aspirations and allow me to build skills that I can use in any graduate program I attend."
