A Fulbright Year in Galicia

About Me

I’m Mary Kate, and I’m living in Galicia for the 2019-2020 school year on a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant grant. I am teaching at a secondary school (agin a coastal town. My hometown is Leavenworth, KS, and I graduated from Creighton University in May 2019.

What and Where is Galicia?

It’s one of the autonomous regions of Spain, in the Northwest corner of the country and north of Portugal – as seen below. It has innumerable beaches, a stellar food scene, an incredibly lively culture , and its own language – gallego.

Galicia

What is Fulbright?

Founded by an American senator after World War II, Fulbright is basically an organization dedicated to cultural exchange. I am part of the English Teaching Assistant program.

To read more, explore this link: https://us.fulbrightonline.org/

there are three main components to this grant:

Cultural Exchange

I loved the local community in Pontevedra, and I’m grateful to my roommate and her friends for introducing me to their friends and favorite spots and activities. The directora – or prinicipal – of my school and her family really adopted me into their family, and through them I was able to meet and spend time with their friends and other members of the community. I did not have a formal set of exhanges, but I thoroughly enjoyed my clases particulares.

Side Project

Part of our Fulbright grants in Spain involved some sort of community project, and mine took on a very different form than I had originally imagined…

follow this to the page where it’s posted!

Teaching: Language Assistant

I taught English at a wonderful secondary school out on the coast in Sanxenxo. The school community embraced me and really made an effort to welcome me, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time and interactions with the faculty and staff. The students were a delight, and they taught me many lessons. It was a magical year, and I’m grateful for the time we had.

My Year in Spain