Arman Luczkow Receives Fulbright to Taiwan

Spring graduate Arman Luczkow will combine his interests in teaching and East Asian culture with a desire to improve his knowledge of Mandarin as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Taiwan. 

Luczkow will be placed in the school system in Chiayi, Taiwan, beginning this August. He plans to spend his Fulbright year exploring as much of Taiwan as possible and learning from his students. 

A politics and English major with an East Asian studies minor and international studies concentration, Luczkow studied Mandarin at Oberlin for one year, and he hopes to develop his language skills further in Taiwan. 

“My time at Oberlin has always encouraged me to try many different things, and I can truly say I’ve been a part of all of the groups and projects that I have wanted to,” says Luczkow, who is a resident of Hastings on Hudson, New York. “In Taiwan, I’m hoping to embrace this same Oberlin mentality of not shying away from new experiences, even if that can be a little uncomfortable at first.”

In the summer before his sophomore year, Luczkow studied away at the National University of Singapore with a scholarship from the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There, he took courses on public health in Asia and economic development in East Asia. 

“My mother grew up in Singapore and my grandfather still lives there, so I stayed with him. After that trip and the courses I took there, I knew I wanted to live and learn in Asia again after graduation.”

At Oberlin, Luczkow has been engaged in a variety of leadership and service roles: as a member of Oberlin Student Senate, he was chair of student life, health and wellness, and disability equity working groups; he was a member of the Student Finance Committee; he was founder and co-chair of the Multiracial Students Association; he served as president and vice president of the Oberlin College Fencing Team and led a fencing ExCo for five semesters. He also held positions with the Oberlin Review student newspaper for two years.

In the classroom, Luczkow was a politics research assistant to Assistant Professor of Politics and comparative American studies Jenny Garcia, and he worked in the Writing and Speaking Center as a Course Writing Associate and Speaking Associate. In the 2019-2020 academic year, he was selected to the Ashby Business Scholars cohort. 

Through all of these experiences, Luczkow says he has learned how to work in a community: “listening, sharing ideas, and valuing varied positionalities. I think these skills will be especially valuable.”

Luczkow’s current post-graduate goals include law school or pursuing a master’s in international studies from an institution in Taiwan or China.