Katherine Riley ’14, of Alameda, Calif., has been awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Spain where she will teach English to Spanish high school students during the 2014-15 academic year.
A political science and Spanish double major in the College Honors Program, Riley has long had a passion for Spain and its culture. She has visited Spain twice with her family on vacations, and once in high school for a homestay program. In the fall semester of her junior year, she studied in Buenos Aires. She also studied in Dublin, Ireland during the spring semester of her junior year.
“My goal in participating in the Fulbright program is not only to help students in the classroom and to teach them various subjects such as English and social studies but also to continue my education as a student of Spanish and growth as a global citizen,” she wrote in her personal statement. Her goal “is to communicate fluently in a professional setting with an elevated vocabulary and a sophisticated understanding of the language.”
Riley plans to pursue a career in international politics, and would ideally like to work for the State Department, the United Nations, or an international non-profit organization to help find solutions for the global issues of the day.
At Holy Cross, Riley is on the Dining Services student advisory committee, which she cofounded; cochair of Model United Nations; policy coordinator for the College Democrats; narrator and monologist for the Vagina Monologues; and member of the Women’s Forum. She blogged about her yearlong study abroad experience for the Holy Cross website, and is a member of Phi Sigma Alpha, the political science honor society, and Sigma Delta Pi, the Hispanic honor society. Last summer, she interned for “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC.
Each year approximately 1,900 U.S. college students are awarded grants through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. The Fulbright Program, the U.S. government’s flagship program in international educational exchange, awards grants to U.S. citizens and nationals of other countries for a variety of educational activities, primarily university lecturing, advanced research, graduate study and teaching in elementary and secondary schools. Since the program’s inception in 1946, more than 300,000 participants — selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential — have had the opportunity to observe each other’s political, economic and cultural institutions. The program operates in more than 155 countries worldwide.
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Riley '14 Awarded Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Spain
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