Three Fulbright students choose Clemson College of Humanities for graduate studies

Reaping rewards from teaching abroad

AUGUST 2020 — Gabrielle Wilkosz, who begins her first year in the Master of Arts in English program this fall, embraced an informal mantra during her year as a teaching assistant in Malaysia: “Buckle up, buttercup!”

The experience was one of the most challenging the 23-year-old has ever known, but it was richly rewarding. “It was incredible,” she said. “I tried to take in as much as I possibly could of the people and places I was able to visit.”

Wilkosz was one of 100 American students chosen to participate in the English Teaching Assistant program in Malaysia in 2019. She worked in the small town of Kemayan, teaching three classes to 14- to -17-year-olds in a classroom without air conditioning.

“We were very isolated,” she said. “The town was a place of contrasts, with older men sitting outside tea shops reading the newspaper and young people posting on Instagram. I can’t stress how incredibly similar all people are to one another the world over.”

Wilkosz was a fully embedded “mini-ambassador,” in the words of Kamala Lakhdir, the U.S. ambassador to Malaysia. Wilkosz not only taught American culture in an English-immersion classroom but also played basketball, dined with students, frequented a retirement home and developed programs for English-language camps.

“We were strongly encouraged to interact with students from dawn to dusk,” she said.

Wilkosz put her writing abilities to good use in crafting and directing a play, “The King of Kemayan,” based on Jeanette Winterson’s children’s book, “The King of Capri.”

“To local knowledge, it was the first and only English-language play performed in the town to date,” she said. “Many of the students had never seen a live-action play, so we really had to work from the ground up.”

Wilkosz was born in Rochester, New York but grew up in Pflugerville, Texas. In 2018, she earned her bachelor’s degree in English writing and rhetoric at St. Edward’s University in Austin.

Wilkosz first became interested in the Fulbright program in her teens. She applied in 2018 and, on New Year’s Day 2019, she boarded a plane for the 36-hour trip to Malaysia.

The experience was a lesson in resilience and international understanding, she said. Wilkosz had to adapt quickly to the food, medicine, and the collectivist nature of a diverse culture with three prominent languages.

“I think my relationships are stronger now because I have a more mature understanding of giving,” she said. She hopes to apply her experiences in cross-cultural communication to bring people together.

“Academically, I’m interested in learning about how we effectively argue across cultural and/or linguistic boundaries,” she said. “After graduate school, I’m excited to get back into the field. As a writer, I want to help facilitate dialogue between groups that talk past one another instead of to each other.”

Wilkosz believes all students should take advantage of study abroad opportunities once the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided.

“Traveling allowed me to better understand myself,” she said. “I think the world would be a better place if more Americans were willing to step out of their comfort zone and travel to different countries and experience new cultures and ways of being. I think we might become more accepting of one another at home.”

She added, “I don’t think I left anything in Malaysia. I feel like I took all the good with me.”

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