Macie Thomas (’24) of Hickman, Neb. has been selected for the Fulbright English Teaching (ETA) Program and will spend the 2024-25 school year in the Czech Republic.
She will be teaching English in a rural town outside of Prague, the country’s capital city. “It’s a prestigious honor. I want to one day be a professor and this is a great opportunity to pursue my passion of teaching.”
The English and communication studies double major and political science minor says her mom has influenced her decision to be an educator. “She's an elementary school teacher and to see the hard work and dedication she puts into the job, and to see the smiles on her students' faces is everything. I want to be able to make small impacts like that on other people.”
Despite her passion, when she enrolled at Nebraska Wesleyan University, she was undecided. “I was going to major in biology and pursue a pre-med track to do optometry or something like that,” she says. “But I found that everything I was doing, whether it was in the Career Center or at the Cooper Center, I was teaching other people, and I really enjoyed being able to help others in that way.”
Thomas was going to attend University of Wisconsin-Madison to complete a five-year program in communication science to obtain a Ph.D, which would’ve allowed her to become a professor. However, she says, that will wait until her time abroad ends.
The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.
Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields.