Nicole K.

Long term, I hope to combine teaching, mentoring, and academic work in ways that make education more accessible. I want to be in classrooms, tutoring centers, language centers, and exchange programs where learning happens collaboratively and with care. I am especially interested in teaching English to speakers of other languages and supporting students who may feel uncertain or out of place in academic spaces. I study linguistics, English literacy, and Korean, and I read about multilingualism, literacy development, and cross-cultural communication. But I keep returning to the same question: how does meaning actually move between people when the cultural context is not shared? As a future educator I intend to focus on cross-cultural literacy and how it affects language acquisition.

One of my main goals while abroad it to stay respectfully curious in any situation I’m in. I want to spend as much time as possible immersed in the culture and language of South Korea while exploring and living there. And I can’t wait to make friends and connections, international and local, while I’m abroad.