Fulbright Reality Czech

Denisa Dražkovičová is a student of chemistry at the University of Pardubice. This past summer, she participated in the 2024 Summer Institute for European Student Leaders, a special training program run by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State. The goal of this 5-week immersive program at Michigan State University is to provide 20 undergraduate students from various countries with a deeper understanding of the United States while enhancing their leadership skills. Denisa’s program focused on civic engagement, leading participants to examine its history in the United States and explore topics such as citizenship, community building, economic development, grassroots activism, political leadership, and volunteerism. Hands-on sessions and workshops focused on civil rights and protections, diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, citizen journalism, social movements, education, governance, minority communities, leadership, and media. Denisa s...

Veronika Pikola Brázdilová works as a manager of international projects in the Václav Havel Library. She studied communications at Sciences Po Paris (Institut d'études politiques)graduating with an internship at the European Commission in Brussels. She was a project manager for the Belgian communication agency managing European Union websites. After returning from abroad, she worked for a year at the Representation of the European Commission in Prague. Since 2013, she has been working in the Václav Havel Library. In the Spring of 2024, she, her husband, and their two sons left for the USA as a scholarship recipient of the Fulbright-Masaryk program for the non-profit sector. For four months, she worked at the Bill Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas. Veronika and her family wanted to take advantage of everything the big move had to offer for their family of four by traveling across the country: “During six months we traveled through 21 states, explored about 40 mus...

Karolína Pštross je  doktorandkou na Institutu komunikačních studií a žurnalistiky Univerzity Karlovy      v Praze. Ve svém výzkumu se zabývá komunikací vědy se zaměřením na vědeckou žurnalistiku, důvěru ve vědu a diskurz na pomězí vědy a umění.  V roce 2023 získala Fulbrightovo stipendium a strávila devět měsíců na Columbia University v New Yorku, kde zkoumala vědecké poradenství v kontextu tzv. evidence-based policymaking. Pracuje také jako vedoucí komunikace v Centru umělé inteligence na ČVUT. Říká se, Fulbright vám změní život. Ruku na srdce, před odjezdem do New Yorku jsem se příslibu turbulentních změn docela bála. Svůj život v Praze mám ráda, profesně i akademicky se mi daří a na své kamarády nedám dopustit. Tak proč něco měnit? Odvahu vyrazit mi nakonec dal i rozhovor s filozofkou Laurie Ann Paul , ve kterém vysvětluje, že k zásadním životním volbám zkrátka nejde přistupovat racionálně. Je to prý jako byste se snažili si představit, jaké by to bylo stát...

Anya is a preschool teacher, actor, and Marketing Director for her local community theater. She is also one of 300 English Teaching Assistants, who have come to spice up foreign language education of Czech students at various high schools all over the Czech Republic since 2005. With a BA in Theater Education, a PreK-12 teaching license, and family heritage in Central Europe, Anya was placed at Masaryk Gymnazium and Nursing School in Vsetín, a town of 25,000 in East Moravia. During the 2019/2020 academic year, beyond teaching English, Anya hosted a popular drama club, where students played theater games, learned how to improv, read parts of scripts, and built scenes with the expectation of performing a play at the end of the school year. In March 2020, however, Covid suddenly paralyzed the world. The Fulbright Program was terminated, and Anya, as well as thousands of other Fulbrighters all over the world, had to return home, often without the opportunity to say a proper goodbye to their...