As promised, here’s Part II of What Fulbright Means to Me. As I detailed in Part I, my Fulbright year in Korea was certainly meaningful. I’m not sure anyone can ever just “move on” from any meaningful experience in life. To some extent, every experience we have shapes our future. That said, I can say my Fulbright year has had lasting effects in my life, moreso than other experiences I’ve had. These effects can be seen in two main areas: academic and personal.
Academic Effects
When I returned from Korea, I had no intention of furthering my education. I thought I would get a job that would allow me to either live and work overseas or travel overseas on business trips. My first post-Fulbright job was with the Korean Embassy in Washington, DC, which meant I was immersed in Korean culture on a daily basis even though I was no longer living there. Seems ideal, right?
What I found as time passed, though, was that I was missing the part of myself that had been involved in writing-focused education before my Fulbright year. I had worked in my college’s writing center, and the more time passed, the more I found I missed talking with people about their writing. I missed helping people figure out how to get their intended meaning across through writing.
So, instead of pursuing an international-focused career, I went to graduate school to pursue a career in writing education. But the line between my interest in writing and my interest in international perspectives didn’t stay clearly demarcated. As I studied, I kept finding myself wondering if there were other ways of thinking about the writing theories I was learning. Most of my studies during my master’s degree program focused on Western rhetorical theory, but I wondered about alternatives to these perspectives.
I can only think my curiousity about different perspectives was impacted by my Fulbright year. It’s not that my Fulbright year was the first time I had expressed an interest in the wider world. As a high schooler, I traveled to Russia, Georgia, and Armenia on an educational tour. I also took a history elective in high school that focused on Africa and Latin America. And I remember one of my favorite middle school courses included a segment on the history of China. In college, I studied abroad in Australia for a semester and traveled to New Zealand and the Cook Islands as part of that trip. However, my Fulbright experience gave me a framework for thinking about global interactions—mutual understanding—and this framework went on to form the foundation of my further academic work.
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Pair of globes. (The J. Paul Getty Museum/Jean-Antoine Nollet) |
As I went on in my studies to pursue my doctorate, I knew I wanted to focus on mutual understanding in some shape. It turned out I was able to make mutual understanding the central idea of my dissertation, Alternatives to Argumentation: Implications for Intercultural Rhetoric. Although the term “mutual understanding” doesn’t show up in the title, it’s the gist of my dissertation’s claim: we can better achieve mutual understanding across difference if we change our teaching of writing so that it doesn’t focus on one side winning and another side losing.
In the years since completing my PhD, I’ve made this tenet about the teaching of writing central to much of my research. I’ve explored how different writers achieve an invitational style rather than an agonistic one in their writing, and I’ve shared my thoughts about teaching students how to use these techniques. I’ve even been fortunate enough to present my ideas at conferences around both the country and the world. Truly the Fulbright ideal of helping to achieve mutual understanding through intercultural experience has played a big part in my academic career.
Personal Effects
In my personal life, the effects of my Fulbright year have lingered as well. In this area of my life, the effects are more closely tied to both Korea and the Fulbright Program in particular, rather than on the broader idea of mutual understanding in general as in my academic life. I’ve written about some of these interests before, so I won’t belabor the point again here, but instead I will try to summarize briefly.
Before my Fulbright to Korea, I would have been oblivious to significant dates in Korean history. I also would have never had any inkling of interest in learning the Korean language, which I do these days through Duolingo. While I enjoyed global literature before my Fulbright, now I intentionally seek out Korean literature in particular. I’ve also previously written about one of the lifelong learning experiences I had in Korea, which was learning to play the gayageum, a Korean stringed instrument. Even though I haven’t kept up that practice, I know learning about the rhythms of Korean music influenced my understanding of daily life there. All of this ongoing interest in all things Korean led me to become a lifetime member of Friends of Korea, an organization for alumni of the Korean Peace Corps Program and the Korean Fulbright Program as well as for anyone else with an interest in Korea.
Similarly, I’m a lifetime member of the Fulbright Association, an organization for alumni and friends of the Fulbright Program. In Part I of this series, I mentioned I had submitted a story about my Fulbright year to the Fulbright Association’s 75th Anniversary Celebration website where alumni stories are highlighted. In addition to this involvement, over the summer I was elected to the board of the North Carolina Chapter of the Fulbright Association, which will allow me to help with the chapter’s programming and outreach. I’ve also volunteered in the past as a reviewer of Fulbright grant applications.
None of these Korea-specific or Fulbright-specific involvements would have happened were it not for my Fulbright to Korea. They’ve added a level of complexity to my life that wouldn’t have been there otherwise. I’m not always sure that complexity is a good thing, but in this case, I’d say it is. What are the experiences you’ve had that have added complexity in a good way to your life? Which experiences are you still learning and growing from long after they’ve finished?