A Foundation for Fellowships

It’s a few days after the total solar eclipse, and Alea Strasser ’24 is fresh off a call with the Fulbright program coordinator in Denmark, making sure she’s on track to secure a visa and residency permit. Next on her plate is figuring out the same permit for Greenland and booking flights. 

All of these things are crucial for her imminent plans: a research Fulbright that’s allowing her to spend the next year as a master’s student at Aarhus University in Denmark and Greenland’s Arctic Research Center. At the latter, she plans to study arctic science, taking classes on topics like sea ice ecology and the impact of climate change on Arctic ecosystems.

A biology major, Strasser worked as the lab manager of the Living Machine, which filters and reuses wastewater in the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies building. She also conducted research with Alex Pike, a visiting assistant professor of biology. Post-graduation, she’s interested in focusing on climate solutions—work that builds on a previous NASA internship where she analyzed remote sensing data (in her case, from soil moisture sensors) to figure out climate problems. 

“It’s using technology to understand what’s happening in our climate,” she explains, noting that she’s especially interested in exploring how to use molecular technology to solve various climate problems. “For example, I [also] really like microbacteria, algae, lichens, and fungi and [studying how to use] those organisms to digest plastics.”

Oberlin is perennially a top producer of Fulbright awardees, a group colloquially called Fulbrighters. Sixteen students were selected for Fulbrights for the 2023-24 academic year—ensuring Oberlin was tied for the second-most awardees in the country among baccalaureate institutions. These awardees encompass the popular English Teaching Assistant (ETA) program and Fulbrights geared toward study and research, including in the creative arts.

Things are looking even brighter for the 2024-25 academic year: Strasser is one of 19 Obies who have been awarded Fulbright grants, breaking Oberlin’s previous record of honorees in a single academic year. (The college also had 39 semifinalists overall, including 14 in the study and research category.) Thirteen Fulbrighters will serve as ETAs, and six will pursue graduate study and research projects abroad, living in countries such as Germany, Colombia, Taiwan, Kazakhstan, and Paraguay. 

How Oberlin Helps Fulbright Applicants

According to Danielle Abdon, director of Fellowships and Awards, many students that choose to pursue Fulbrights are building on past programs they’ve accessed via the Center for Engaged Liberal Arts (CELA), like Study Away. Other popular programs include Spanish in the Elementary Schools (SITES), where students teach Spanish to local elementary school children, and the Ninde Scholar Program through the Bonner Center in CELA, where students can provide one-on-one tutoring and near-peer mentorship in Oberlin city schools.

The Fellowships and Awards office, also located in CELA, is a big part of Oberlin’s Fulbright success. Starting the semester before applications are due and leading up to the fall submission deadline, Abdon and her team provide individualized guidance to Fulbright applicants, ensuring they’re supported every step of the way through the process. This assistance includes multiple information sessions; one-on-one meetings; access to peer tutors trained to read Fulbright applications; and the ability to submit essay drafts for unlimited revisions.

The tailored, comprehensive assistance is crucial. Fulbright applications are specialized; their requirements vary depending on the country and the type of fellowship. For example, some students applying for study/research fellowships must apply to graduate school in their intended country of study. Other applicants need to interview with the Fulbright Commission from their potential host country. 

Putting together an application is also an iterative process that takes place over many months. Along the way, Abdon’s office provides mock interviews and holds what they call Fulbright Fridays—open houses where staff and peer tutors answer questions and offer help. “Or it’s a writing session for people who just want a space to write,” she adds. As the Fulbright application deadline looms, Abdon says packed rooms are the norm for her office’s all-day writing and feedback sessions. 

Before students submit applications, they also have the chance to receive detailed feedback from faculty; in fact, Oberlin has a dedicated fellowships faculty committee that has a further subspecialty in Fulbright applications. Among other things, the Fellowships and Awards office schedules virtual or in-person interview sessions that give students and faculty a chance to connect. “I try to pair the students with two staff and faculty members who have had a Fulbright in that country or have experienced teaching English as a second language,” Abdon says. These interview-driven sessions help applicants contextualize Oberlin-specific things like ExCos or Winter Term for Fulbright reviewers—but also help students refine and prepare their essays.

For Simon Nosek ’24, a politics and religion major with a minor in Jewish studies, this intensive support was crucial in helping them earn an English Teaching Assistantship to the Czech Republic. “You basically have to sell yourself as a cultural role model for what an American should be abroad,” they said. “It was like going through the college application process again. But I applied to 10 colleges—I only get to apply to one Fulbright.”

Nosek’s application required a personal statement and essays explaining their interest in teaching, why they chose the Czech Republic, how they might be a cultural ambassador, and their future plans. “All of these go through multiple feedback rounds,” they said. “You have a full sit-down meeting. They’ve annotated all of your essays and give you really detailed feedback, and then you turn in a new draft. It’s an involved process.”

Nosek found that hearing feedback from professors who had “read hundreds of Fulbright essays and knew what worked and what didn’t” was helpful. “It’s definitely a specialized way of writing that I [wasn’t] used to,” they said. “You also are trying to pitch yourself in a competitive field of candidates. [The professors] were able to help me refine everything down to a point where even if I had other things I wanted to say, they’re like, ‘Cut those out. Make one argument—and make it really well.’” 

Individual Support, Excellent Results

Oberlin’s support for Fulbright applications extends beyond campus; for example, Nosek was able to connect with an Obie alum who had also completed a Fulbright fellowship in the Czech Republic for insights and feedback. And Strasser worked with Abdon to seek out experts in their collective network who could give insights into the particulars of the Denmark-specific application. 

But Strasser’s Fulbright journey had begun months earlier. During the 2023 spring semester, she attended a Fulbright introduction session and then booked a one-on-one meeting with Abdon as she mulled options within her target parameters: an English-speaking country in a colder climate with a big research institution. Over the next few months, Strasser worked on refining the shorter essays in her application.

But several days before the applications were due, she realized that her crucial statement of grant purpose needed significant work—and came to Abdon seeking assistance.

“I [was] like, ‘I’ve been really stressed with all my work and have been scared to look at this. And I’ve been trying to write it—and I just can’t. Please help me,’” Strasser recalls. “And Danielle was like, ‘It’s OK—you still have time. You can do this.’ And that was incredible. Because it wasn’t, ‘You can’t do this’—it’s ‘You can do this. Let’s figure it out. And I’m here to support you.’ It felt really nice … I felt really supported. I’m really thankful for Danielle because I wouldn’t be here if not for her help.”

Nosek sensed the same kind of encouragement and collaboration among their peers applying for Fulbrights, which made the experience that much better. “There’s definitely an institutional push among students to help each other refine their programs,” they said. “You’re not really competing with the other students. Even [though] there’s another student applying for the Czech Republic, we felt no competition [or] animosity. I think we got a recommendation from the same person. 

“It’s nice that it doesn’t feel like a competitive process because you never see the other applicants [or] the reviews,” Nosek added. “You just try to put forward your best pitch. And if it works—it works.”

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If you’re a rising or graduating senior interested in Fulbright, connect with Fellowships & Awards at Oberlin to learn more about pursuing research or an arts project, obtaining a graduate degree, or teaching English in a foreign country of your choice following graduation.