Alumni Highlights
Angel Bista, Japanese and Arabic, BA International Relations, 2020
Angel Bista
2020 Graduate
Major: International Relations
During her time at Grand Valley, Angel pursued Japanese and Arabic language studies, under the scope of her degree in International Relations. She was the recipient of the State Department’s Critical Language Scholarship (2019), the Bridging Scholarship for Japanese Study (2018), and a grant from the Cook Leadership Academy, all of which, alongside the Office of Fellowships and the Padnos International Center, helped support her study abroad experiences in Japan. In pursuit of her passion for language learning, Angel moved to Ulsan, South Korea, where she is currently working as an English teacher. She is actively developing strategies for language-acquisition that resemble those utilized by her previous instructors, and implementing them in her own classroom (thankfully, her 10-year-olds are a lot easier to motivate with candy than undergraduates)!
Graduating in the year of COVID-19, she has no 5-year plan, but she knows that her upcoming years will include a long-anticipated trip to Arabic-speaking countries, continued language study, and a winding path back to graduate school.
Updated October 2020
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