PLEASE NOTE: This is not an official website of the US Fulbright Program. Any opinions expressed on this weblog are personal and not formally endorsed by any mentioned institutions, including the US Fulbright Program, the US State Department, and the National University of Laos.
This blog details the adventures of a certain frizzy redhead by the name of Lizz Card. Lizz will spend one year in Laos under a Fulbright ETA Scholarship teaching English at the National University of Laos in the capital city, Vientiane.
Lizz recently graduated from Tufts University located in Medford, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in Biology and a minor in Chinese. She studied a premed curriculum and plans to send in the first round of applications to American medical schools while abroad in Laos.
When Lizz studied abroad at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, she discovered her love of language learning, cultural exploration, and Asian cuisine. Upon her return to America she began tutoring online English to Japanese adults, which further convinced her of the beauty of language learning. Lizz believes learning a new language brings students of all ages back to the magic of childhood as they use foreign words to explore a whole new world of culture.
Lizz’s interest in Laos stems from the large Laotian Hmong population in her home state of Minnesota, as well as her desire to become a primary care physician for Asian refugees in America and to eventually train physicians of developing areas in Asia. She is aware of the problems that arise due to cultural barriers between American doctors and Eastern demographics and plans to use her time in Laos to expand her understanding of Hmong and Laotian values, disease concepts, traditional medicine, and religion, as well as the process of institutionalization of Western medicine in the developing world. With this knowledge, Lizz hopes so to one day provide the highest quality care, despite the physical and cultural distance between the East and the West.
Lizz recently graduated from Tufts University located in Medford, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in Biology and a minor in Chinese. She studied a premed curriculum and plans to send in the first round of applications to American medical schools while abroad in Laos.
When Lizz studied abroad at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, she discovered her love of language learning, cultural exploration, and Asian cuisine. Upon her return to America she began tutoring online English to Japanese adults, which further convinced her of the beauty of language learning. Lizz believes learning a new language brings students of all ages back to the magic of childhood as they use foreign words to explore a whole new world of culture.
Lizz’s interest in Laos stems from the large Laotian Hmong population in her home state of Minnesota, as well as her desire to become a primary care physician for Asian refugees in America and to eventually train physicians of developing areas in Asia. She is aware of the problems that arise due to cultural barriers between American doctors and Eastern demographics and plans to use her time in Laos to expand her understanding of Hmong and Laotian values, disease concepts, traditional medicine, and religion, as well as the process of institutionalization of Western medicine in the developing world. With this knowledge, Lizz hopes so to one day provide the highest quality care, despite the physical and cultural distance between the East and the West.