Tigers are everywhere in Columbia, Missouri. All students, called ‘Tigers’, wear caps, shirts, sweaters and bags with the animal logo. Several stores only sell yellow-and-black flags, mugs and toys. And if you want to survive the humid summer heat, you can buy ‘Tiger Stripe Ice Cream’ (with vanilla and chocolate flavor). So the first thing I did when I arrived in my new hometown, was buying a yellow ‘Mizzou’ t-shirt.
Have you noticed, my friend told me over brunch the other day, “that Belgians in D.C. usually intend to move back to their home country at some point?” My friend is from a little Flemish town not too far from Antwerp. I myself grew up in another little town not too far from Antwerp. Yet, we met in Washington D.C. (granted: it was in a Belgian-owned bar during a game of the Belgian Red Devils). We both recently moved to the U.S. capital. She is one of the many wonderful people I would never have met had I decided to remain at home, in my comfortable Belgian bubble.
In August 2020, I packed two suitcases, bought a one-way ticket to New York and moved across the ocean in the middle of the pandemic. The main question preceding this move was: “Should I go or defer?” Some people warned me that due to the pandemic I will not have the ‘real’ Fulbright experience.
After a year like 2020, it felt quite unreal to go to the American Embassy for our visa and to get on a plane in January for the big Fulbright experience. The first weeks were tough: COVID case numbers were rising everywhere, the hospital I was doing my research at was busy planning vaccinations, causing a delay in the onboarding processes, the apartment I booked for the first two weeks wasn’t quite like it was advertised,…
From November 2019 until July 2020 my family and I lived in State College, where I was a visiting postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University (‘Penn State’). This blogpost shares our experience, colored by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that unfolded during our stay, and how the Belgium-Luxembourg Fulbright Commission and the Institute of International Education (IIE) serve as a prime example of how supportive, fostering academic exchange programs should look like.
2020 will long be remembered as an eventful year. It will be remembered as the year in which, in March 2020, the WHO announced the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. Less than half a year afterward, it is already clear that the global COVID-19 pandemic is widening inequalities. There is increasing evidence that some racial and ethnic minority groups are being disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Inequities in the social determinants of health, such as poverty and healthcare access, affecting these groups are interrelated and influence a wide range of health and quality-of-life outcomes and risks.
Dark. Gloomy. Rainy. The Emerald City did not fail to live up its reputation when I landed on its ground in early January 2020. What was yet to come, no one could have ever suspected it…
Living in the USA for an academic year was one of those things that I put on my bucket list a few years ago. When I found out about the Fulbright FLTA program that allowed young teachers to teach in the US, I applied to be a French teacher assistant the next day. Here I am, a year after my program has stated, remembering the two working semesters as a French TA on the campus of Austin College in Sherman, Texas.
It feels like yesterday: LAX welcomed me on January 8th. It was a lovely warm evening for someone arriving from a Belgian winter. I rented an Airbnb for a week to look for lodging until the end of my 4 months program, late April. A few weeks before my departure from Brussels, I already searched online for an apartment near UCLA Campus and found a very interesting place. I proceeded with the required steps until the payment moment, but there was something strange. The account number showed the name of an individual instead of the leasing company. Google did not provide me with any information regarding that name being related to the leasing company. A friend in the US called the company, checked the place, and confirmed that this was a scam. The Craigslist ad was flagged and I was saved from losing some thousands USD as a “deposit”. During my Airbnb stay, through a Facebook group “UCLA shared room” […]
Just having obtained a master’s degree at Ghent University, I was ready for something else. Something providing me with more than just a passion for my work. A month later, I was on a plane, heading for my first direct contact ever with American culture. Not only for a two-week vacation but an actual full academic year, the longest I would ever have been out of Belgium. Being abroad for such a long time really persuades you to be open and welcoming for a new lifestyle, and consequently rethink and consider your own habits. It is remarkable how much you learn about yourself and your own culture by being so far from home. The first thing that popped into my mind when arriving in Miami for a Fulbright event: “I am totally in a movie!”. A week later, I went through New York City to reach my final destination, Ithaca. While my knowledge about American life was completely based on […]
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