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U.S. Fulbright

U.S. Fulbright

Surrounded by Extraordinary People

December 3, 2015
Jonathan Rabb

Jonathan Rabb, 2012-2013, Germany, hiking in Marburg

“If you surround yourself with people who are smarter than you, there is no telling how far you will go.” That is what Reiner Rohr, the Deputy Director of the German Fulbright Commission, told me and a small group of bright-eyed Fulbrighters upon our arrival in country. This just so happens to be some of the most important advice I have ever gotten, and it helped me utilize every single moment of my grant to the fullest.

My name is Jonathan Rabb and I was one of seven journalists awarded Fulbright’s Beginning Professional Journalists grants to Germany for the 2012-2013 academic year. This grant was created in 1996 to allow a select group of promising U.S. journalists to come to Germany to conduct research, improve their craft, and complete residencies at German media and news outlets. For my particular grant, I did multiple residencies in digital audience development and transmedia, including one at UFA LAB, a one-of-a-kind digital creative lab owned by the oldest and largest production company in Germany. At UFA LAB, I worked on developing new formats for online television and did on-air coverage in both German and English for “eNtR berlin,” a YouTube channel, on events ranging from Barack Obama’s historic 2013 visit to Berlin to re:publica, one of the world’s largest and most important conferences on digital culture.

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U.S. Fulbright

A Marine Biologist Discovering Chilean Hospitality

November 30, 2015
Christopher Knight

Christopher Knight, 2013-2014, Chile (in red shirt, far left), collecting organisms along the rocky shoreline with Manon Sanguinet of France, Rodrigo Uribe Vásquez of Chile, and Dr. Simon Morley of the British Antarctic Survey

Overlooking the sea, I was wandering the dirt roads in the sleepy village of Las Cruces. It was my first week in Chile and I was trying to find the local bodega. I mustered the courage to speak Spanish with a man working in his garden.

-Hola, can you please tell me how to get to Malloco?

-Hi! Sure, it’s really close. How about I just drive you there?

During the short ride, we introduced ourselves. Incidentally, he had a son that recently moved to the United States and he was eager to visit. At the end of the ride, I thanked him and could not help but grin at his hospitality. Little did I know, such kind interactions would become a routine occurrence at my new home.

As a Fulbrighter, I was conducting marine biological research at the Estación Costera de Investigaciones Marinas (ECIM). Along with my advisor, Dr. Sergio Navarrete, and his PhD student, Joan Escobar, I explored how interactions between organisms such as sea stars, crabs, and mussels affect the community structure of the rocky intertidal zone. A typical day might involve collecting organisms for a lab experiment, dodging powerful waves while collecting field data, and on calmer days, ending with a celebratory plunge into the frigid Pacific Ocean.

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FLTA Foreign Fulbright U.S. Fulbright

Happy Thanksgiving from the Fulbright Program! Listen to How International Education Has Changed the Lives of These Participants.

November 26, 2015

Have a Fulbright Thanksgiving story to share? Please send us any images or content you would like to share with us to this link: https://fulbright.netx.net/uploads, making sure to use ‪#‎Thanksgiving2015‬ in the caption box. This will help us locate your uploaded images within our digital asset system. Also, feel free to post to your own personal social media accounts as you normally do using ‪#‎Fulbright‬.

Once we have gathered your content, we will pull it into a Storify like the one we did last year (see below)!

https://storify.com/FulbrightPrgrm/a-fulbrightthanksgiving-story

Happy Thanksgiving!

‪#‎FulbrightFood‬ ‪#‎Thanksgiving‬ ‪#‎TasteofState‬

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U.S. Fulbright

Does it Pass the Test? Math Education Research in China

November 16, 2015
Allie Surina-1

Allie Surina, 2012-2013, China

I researched math achievement in Xi’an, China as part of the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, and I was in for a surprise. I discovered a student learning style that called into question the negative stereotypes Americans often have about ‘memorization’ in Asian countries. The use of test scores as a measure of human potential is a controversial topic in our national news. I was definitely curious how Chinese students ace their tests so easily. Maybe, I thought, classrooms in China really are like student factories, pumping out perfect calculators. I could not have been more wrong.

Since my grant ended in 2013, I have excitedly told everyone within earshot that math education in China is much more than the ‘test culture’ we often hear it is. In China, I found a culture of participation inside classrooms and I watched young children work through failure with courage and persistence. By all my tests of good learning, Chinese classrooms were performing well.

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U.S. Fulbright

Rolling with the Punches: How My Project ‘Failure’ Turned into a Fulbright Success Story

November 9, 2015
Bryan Furman

Bryan Furman, 2013-2014, Tajikistan, (in front of class, in white shirt), leading a discussion on the importance of psycho-social support services

I wrote my Fulbright application “knowing” exactly what I would accomplish.

My advisers and I spent months drafting my Statement of Grant Purpose for a Fulbright U.S. Student Award to Tajikistan. I developed a project to apply my advanced Russian and Persian language proficiencies and four years of Central Asia area studies in tracking trends in Tajik foreign policy. Additionally, I secured a placement at the prestigious Tajik Academy of Sciences and made contact with leading Tajik scholars.

These well-laid plans fell apart about two months after starting my grant. In my proposal, I outlined how I would interview government representatives and review official documents to gain unprecedented insight into Tajik foreign affairs. Wishful thinking. Whatever access I expected never came—a problem I attributed to my lack of on-the-ground experience. With my project going nowhere, I felt I had in some way “failed” Fulbright.

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