When students win overseas fellowships, they are thrilled, advisors are excited and institutions are appreciative, but what happens when the publicity stops and the adventure starts? Several of my students have been good email correspondents and I’ve been able to get intermittent glimpses of what their time abroad was like, but I’ve always wanted more, to see them in action and get a better sense of what they are experiencing. Combining this urge with a long-held (but never acted upon) desire to take a vacation in March, I booked tickets to visit a friend in Singapore and two UIC graduates in Southeast Asia over spring break. I met the Fulbrighters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Sae Rom Chae is doing research at the University of Malaya; Brandi Mora, an ETA in Indonesia, flew to Kuala Lumpur to meet with us for three days.

One thing became clear quickly. As one would suspect, the Fulbright experience varies greatly from place to place, person to person, and project to project. Sae Rom lives in a building in Kuala Lumpur near other Fulbright researchers, and her days are spent researching in libraries and on the Internet, attending lectures and conferences and tracking down and talking to people who can assist with her research project on how religious background influences attitudes toward sexual health, especially HIV/AIDS. Brandi is one of the only westerners in her suburb of Jakarta (Depok). She hops on the back of random motorcycles to get to school where she teaches English in the early part of each day to 14-17 year olds. When her classes are finished for the day, she plans lessons, keeps up with friends through the Internet, and ventures out to the market for food. Despite their different settings and activities, their trials and rewards have been fairly similar. Both cite bureaucracy, more frequent illness than they experienced in the States and, adjusting to cultural norms as issues that required patience and inner strength. For instance, Brandi, a left-hander, found students and staff offended by her use of this hand to write on the board and to eat. When she understood why (related to bathroom practices), she explained that she did not use her left hand in that way, which seemed to alleviate their concerns.

The best thing about the Fulbright year for Sae Rom has been the freedom to structure her own learning experience. Both students also noted how much they valued getting a personal insight into Islam at this crucial juncture in history, as well as being able to offer a perspective on the US and North Americans to combat stereotypes their friends and students held. On a personal level, the level I always find the most intriguing, they mention having pushed their boundaries of comfort to find that they could deal with a lot more loneliness, stomach troubles and confusion than they ever thought possible. They both agreed that despite the challenges, the friendships made, the personal boundaries broken, and the insight into self and a new culture make it all worthwhile. Having known Sae Rom for over four years and wondered if her reserved personality might hold her back in her career, I almost cried like a proud parent as I heard her say, “I’ve realized that I will learn more if I put myself out there, approach people with my questions and thus create my own network of professional contacts.”

When I asked them about how the application and advising process helped them (if at all), they said that consulting with faculty on their applications, going through a committee evaluation, and getting feedback was extremely valuable. Both students have continued to communicate with key mentors through email both for academic and personal support while they have been abroad. Learning this spoke volumes to me about the ancillary benefits of the process–learning to appreciate and respond to faculty feedback, and building strong relationships with mentors that continue past graduation. Both students sought out people from their host countries before leaving the States and claim this was very helpful in getting advice on what to bring, getting a glimpse into the host culture from someone who had gone through a reverse of their adaptation experience, and creating ties that in some cases have played out with family visits in the host country.

Adjusting to a new culture and their academic pursuits has played out differently for the two; Sae Rom is Korean-American and finds she is generally taken for Chinese Malaysian, which has minimized the perception of her as foreign. She feels the diversity of our university prepared her well for the diversity of Kuala Lumpur. Classes on globalization, women in international perspective and public health got her thinking about the issues she is working on today, and laid a strong foundation for her research. Brandi mentions her challenges in adjusting to UIC, from a high school that offered inadequate college preparation, as helpful to her in adjusting to the cultural and language differences of Indonesia. Her teaching experience in Chicago area high schools and a methods course at UIC helped her to walk more confidently into the classroom.

I was curious to learn if the experience had influenced their career goals. Both claimed it had without any doubt. Sae Rom had long considered a career in “international health,” but had limited knowledge of what that might entail. Her work with NGOs through her research has shown her the vital impact they can have, thus expanding her ideas of the kind of institutions through which she could make a difference in the future. She is returning to pursue medical study in the fall. Brandi has applied for several graduate programs in education and is also exploring links with UNESCO that she made in Indonesia. She has long considered a career as an educator at some level, and her teaching experience has focused her interest on the varying approaches to education and the learning process itself. She was impressed to note high achievement among her students despite a lack of classroom resources and amenities like computers, air conditioning, and multi-media. Can educational advances be made without financial resources, she wonders. Conversely, she was concerned to see children she thought might have learning disabilities labeled as “lazy.” She is more convinced than ever of the importance of maintaining an open approach to diverse educational philosophies as US schools and school districts seek solutions to their problems.

My final question to them was, “What does it mean to you to be a Fulbrighter?” Although I asked this question to each of them while the other was not around, their responses were almost identical. They were incredibly grateful to Fulbright for the opportunity to be a part of a powerful process of enriching the lives of young North Americans who are simultaneously debunking stereotypes and teaching others about what at least one version of being a citizen of the United States is like. They referred to themselves as cultural ambassadors, whether they wanted to be or not; they knew that the concept of the US held by people they came into contact with would be influenced by their actions in their host country.

When I asked them which personal qualities they called upon most in making their current experiences work for them, they cited patience, open mindedness, persistence, stamina, perseverance and a good attitude. I’d like to think that they strengthened a few of those qualities as a result of going through the steps the campus Fulbright process asked of them way back in 2005. Regardless of who can be credited for helping them successfully navigate their Fulbright year, I am deeply moved by my glimpse into their experiences, and am more firmly convinced than ever that the Fulbright and other overseas scholarships open doors to learning, opportunity and personal growth that leave a lifelong imprint. I am proud to be part of the process.