Five Pepperdine students have been awarded grants from the prestigious Fulbright Program this year. Graduate student Julia Barr and seniors Aubrey Hoeppner, Cameron Kruse, Wojetk Peliks and Sabena Virani received the scholarship to teach, study or perform research in another country for approximately one year.
Each year, around 8,000 awards are granted to U.S. students, foreign students, scholars and visiting scholars, as well as to several hundred teachers and professionals. These recipients join a long list of Waves who have won the award, but each student’s Fulbright experience will take them to a different country.
Barr, a 2011 graduate with an English degree, will travel to Slovakia for 10 months to teach English as a foreign language. By working in a school that has students in the American equivalent of grades five through 12, she hopes to immerse herself in a new culture.
“When I return to America, I will share everything I have learned with my friends, family and colleagues, which I hope will cause a ripple effect of knowledge and understanding,” she said.
Hoeppner, a senior and Graphic News editor will also be teaching English as a foreign language in an Eastern European country. Beginning in August, she will spend 10 months with high school students in Bulgaria. Hoeppner taught business English last summer in Bulgaria and plans to volunteer in an orphanage during her stay.
Kruse, a senior Biology major, is one of two students whose Fulbright Program will take him to Asia. In August, he will travel to India for nine to 10 months to research possible ways to use a specific plant with the goal of helping those living with HIV in underdeveloped regions. Kruse believes his years in Malibu will help him uphold the Fulbright Program’s mission to “increase mutual understanding between people of the United States and people of other countries.”
“My time at Pepperdine has shown me that shared experience — stepping outside of your comfort zone with another — is one of the most effective ways to build relationships,” he said.
Across the Indian Ocean, senior Wojtek Peliks will live in Indonesia for a year teaching high schoolers. He plans to have the students write journal entries about their favorite life experiences, as well as give them disposable cameras to take pictures of anything they find exciting or interesting.
“I’d like to put [all the pictures] together into a coffee table book,” he said. “By creating this book, I’d hope to increase people’s understanding of Indonesian life, culture, and worldview.”
Sabena Virani, a senior International Studies and Intercultural Communication major, will spend eight to 10 months in Argentina. Her time will consist of teaching English 20 hours a week, as well as conducting research on the effects of Facebook on culture and communication. Virani’s sentiments echo the attitudes of the other scholars, as they prepare represent the United States while embracing a new country and culture.
“I have been awarded the wonderful opportunity to show the positive side of America, because I am willing to share information, but most importantly, listen,” she said. “After all, God gave us two ears and one mouth so we could listen twice as much as we speak.”
