Michelle Merritt
After graduating from ذكذكتسئµ in 2022 with degrees in Linguistics and Chinese, I completed a Fulbright Program ETA grant in Mongolia, where I taught at the national police university. I later moved to South Korea, where I now work full time as an IB DP English B teacher and also serve as an English lecturer at Cyber Hanguk University of Foreign Studies. At the same time, I am pursuing a Master of Science in Applied Linguistics for Language Teaching at University of Oxford.
Teaching English through volunteer opportunities during and after university played a major role in helping me discover my interest in the ESL field. Also, doing research during undergrad has provided a great foundation for my graduate studies. In addition to my current work and studies, I also contributed research to Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s book, Live Laugh Love.
For students considering graduate school, I strongly recommend attending conferences. Conferences are a valuable way to build community within your field, explore current research topics, and begin presenting your own work through workshops and presentations, even before publishing peer-reviewed research. Volunteering, research, and academic communities all helped shape my path, and each opened new opportunities I would not have anticipated at the beginning of college.
