Junior Year in Munich students become Fulbrighters

The Fulbright program is the United States government’s flagship educational and cultural exchange program, the most widely recognized and prestigious international exchange program in the world. It was founded in 1946 when Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas introduced legislation to use proceeds from the sale of surplus war property from World War II to fund the “promotion of international goodwill through the exchange of students in the fields of education, culture and science.”

Today, Fulbright exchanges are administered by the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), which has the mission to “increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries by means of educational and cultural exchanges that assist in the development of peaceful relations.”

Two Fulbright awards open to recent college and university graduates are the English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) program in Germany and the U.S. Teaching Assistantship (USTA) Program in Austria. JYMers are a perfect fit for both awards. They understand what it means to live abroad for an extended period. They are already adept at linguistic and cultural translation. They understand that developing one’s intercultural and linguistic skills requires continuous, mindful practice.

JYM is proud to announce that four participants from our 2022-2023 cohort have been awarded Fulbright teaching awards for the 2024-2025 academic year: Daniel Chi (Bowdoin College), Katie Hausmann (American University), Emily Kuzel (American University) and Quinn Nordlund-Hefferan (Grand Valley State University) received USTA awards from Austria. Emily also received an ETA award from Germany and will have to decide where she wants to spend her year. As they say in German: "Wer die Wahl hat, hat die Qual."