A Nebraska Wesleyan University education and special education major has won a Fulbright Scholarship to teach in Taiwan next year.
Samantha Wessels, a senior from Weeping Water, will teach English at an elementary school in Taiwan.
The Fulbright Scholarship is the flagship international education program sponsored by the United States government. Forty-five Nebraska Wesleyan students have won the prestigious honor with 31 of the awards coming in the past decade.
Wessels’ interest in Taiwan was sparked by a NWU Global Service Learning trip to China in 2011. While there she had the opportunity to teach English for a few days to children in ShanXi Province and Nanjing. That experience prompted her to enroll in a Mandarin language course the following semester.
“My friends thought I was crazy taking Mandarin for no credit with a full plate of senior-level education coursework, but I knew I had to explore this interest,” she said.
As a junior Wessels participated in Nebraska Wesleyan’s Capitol Hill Internship Program in Washington, D.C. where she interned with the United States Senate’s Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. Wessels recently completed her student teaching in Ireland where she taught first grade at a boys school.
Following a year in Taiwan, Wessels plans to return to Nebraska to teach and eventually work in education administration, advocacy, or policy.
The Institute for International Education has consistently recognized NWU as one of the top national producers of Fulbright scholars.