Fulbright award-winners weigh their future options

This year, the number of Penn students admitted to the Fulbright United States Student Program nearly doubled, from 13 to 21.

The Fulbright grant will provide recipients with the opportunity to conduct research or teach English for one academic year in countries ranging from Germany to Korea to Tajikstan.

The rise in recipients is notable for Penn, which was not included in the Chronicle of Higher Education’s list of 35 “top producers of U.S. Fulbright Students” last year.

The Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships attributed this to the fact that 4 of the 13 recipients had declined the grant for personal reasons.

This year, at least two Fulbright recipients from Penn decided to decline their award in order to pursue graduate school. CURF was unable to determine whether others had also turned down the grant.

2010 College graduate Nadja Eisenberg-Guyot decided to pursue a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology instead of taking up a grant to research HIV transmission between heroin users in Toronto.

Although Eisenberg-Guyot was “really excited about the grant,” she decided to turn it down when she was accepted to the City University of New York, her top choice graduate program.

“With the economy being what it is and graduate schools giving out less funding, it seemed too risky to turn down my acceptance,” she explained.

2010 College graduate Jody Pollock, who received a grant to study public spaces in Colombia, will also turn down the Fulbright to pursue a Masters degree in urban planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Pollock said it was a tough decision to turn down a grant as prestigious as the Fulbright award.

The students who did accept the grant are excited about the great opportunity it presents.

2011 College graduate Hannah Connor, who accepted a grant to teach English in Madrid, Spain, said the Fulbright grant will allow her to “learn about different cultures and to interact with people from different parts of the world.”

CURF Assistant Director for Communication Aaron Olson attributes the increase in the number of Penn’s recipients to the individual qualifications of the students who apply.

This year, “a lot of students had previous experience with in-depth research” in the countries they were applying to, which made them attractive candidates, Olson said.

Students who are accepting the grant believe it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

“Fellowships such as these can be stepping stones into all sorts of jobs and later degree programs,” said 2010 College graduate Rachel Romeo, a recipient who will be studying in England.

In the next year, Romeo plans to develop technology to diagnose several childhood language disorders and get to know local culture.

2011 College graduate Mark Pan, who is deferring Teach for America to teach English in Malaysia, said he is “never going to have another chance to take a year off and explore a totally random place.”

“I kind of see a Fulbright as a fifth year of college in which you get to study what you want [and] work where you want,” said 2011 College graduate Sam Ribnick, who received a grant to study water management for rural farming communities in Jordan. “And instead of you paying tons of money to do all this, they actually pay you!”

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