Laurie Fraser, German Teacher Education Major

I always knew that I wanted to become a teacher. It was my passion and I didn’t really care what it was I was going to teach. I first thought I was going to teach English, and then I thought it would be biology. It did not take long for me to realize that if I wanted to succeed as a teacher, I needed disregard any concerns and follow my heart, and deepen my knowledge of the German language and culture.
When I first arrived at Illinois State, there was no active German club. Together with the German professors, I reactivated it. We met for conversation hours, we went out to dinner and, most importantly, we had a chance to explore the language and culture without the pressures of a professor with a red pen and a critical ear. We became a fairly tight-knit group.
My interest and enthusiasm for my degree enabled me to pry open the constraints of the world I knew. My junior year I received a grant from the German Academic Exchange Service, which paid my way to study in Freiburg, Germany for the year. The grant supported me in every aspect of the year abroad, and even provided enough of a stipend that I could use my free time to travel much of the European Continent.
I came back to Illinois State more in love with the German culture and language than ever. The German Academic Exchange Service caught wind of it, and decided to recruit me to be a Young Ambassador for them. They flew me to New York for conferences and gave me everything I needed to spread the word about Germany and let people know that anyone can have a chance to study abroad in Germany.
|After graduating, with my teaching degree in hand, I decided I really wanted to get to know another part of Germany. In my heart of hearts I still feel like a southern German, knowing the Black Forest well enough to really be able to imagine what my childhood would have been like, had I lived there. So I took a Fulbright Teaching Assistantship in Leipzig, Germany. I wanted to go to Leipzig because it is in the east of Germany, and I really wanted to deepen my knowledge of the Cold War and understand what life was like “behind the wall.”
The tools and support I received from the professors at Illinois State not only prepared me to be a successful high school teacher, which I now am in the Maine Township District in the suburbs of Chicago, but they also encouraged me to seize every opportunity presented to me to go abroad. Because of them I have traveled in over a dozen countries and have been hired a top district in the nation.