Sarah Heineken '15 Receives Fulbright in Germany

Sarah Heineken ’15, a German studies major, has been awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) in Germany.

This will not be Heineken’s first trip to Germany. She has lived in the country for two and a half years previously while participating in the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Program and as a Verband der Deutsch-Amerikansichen Clubs Exchange Student Scholarship Recipient.

“I chose to apply to Fulbright to get experience teaching a language under the mentorship of an experienced teacher, while continuing to improve my German language skills as well as gaining international professional experience,” she says. Heineken looks forward to learning about another country’s education system as a teacher, rather than as a student. “My experience as a high school exchange student in Germany was very formative, but I've never had a chance to learn more about how the administration and teachers in the school system operate on a day-to-day basis,” she says.

Heineken has been placed in the German state of Saxony and will most likely be teaching English in a college-preparatory high school to students ranging in age from 9–19 years old. While she has taught German before—during winter term 2015 she served as a teaching assistant for the German Intensive course—she says she is curious to see how teaching elementary and middle school students differs from teaching young adults.

While at Oberlin, the Ann Arbor, Michigan, native was heavily involved with program housing, serving as a resident assistant for two years and planning events for German House and Barnard Substance Free House. She says she also loved the on-campus dance parties and could often be found blues dancing or attending Merengue Madness.

After finishing her ETA, Heineken says she would like to either find a position in the international student affairs and exchange field or enroll in a master’s program for international communication and/or education.