Shehneela Naz and her Orbit of Education
Shehneela Naz, a Senior Lecturer of BRAC Institute of Languages (BIL) since 2019, was recently awarded the prestigious Fulbright Foreign Student Program scholarship, an honour reserved for only six Bangladeshis this year. She will be pursuing her master’s at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Her topic is “Digital Environment in Learning”. In an interview with BracU Express, she opened up about her journey and experience.
Ms. Naz completed her bachelor’s and master’s degree from Dhaka University’s English program. After graduation, she did a 6 months internship at “Save the Children”. Working there, she saw lapses in planning and implementation. Though digital mediums were provided for the underprivileged schools, due to the teachers lacking adequate skills, the model remains unsuccessful. When further asked about choosing her topic she said, “I personally felt bad when teaching my niece and nephew. I felt they were unable to fully learn”. Through her teaching experience, she came to a conclusion that students in general do prefer to learn via multimedia classrooms.
Talking about her scholarship journey, she applied through the American Center during May last year. The most important part, according to her, was writing the essays. The main two essays were “Justify the subject you want to study” and “Your future plan according to the topic you have chosen”. Furthermore, she talked about how GRE and TOEFL are necessary to give but you can also apply through your IELTS grades. Once accepted, the scholarship will pay for your GRE and TOEFL exams.
Her interview took place two months after submitting the application. Reflecting on her personal experience, she recalls being anxious the whole time, refreshing her email everyday. One day, she received a call while working in her office. It was from the American Center asking her if she would be attending the orientation arranged for those who were accepted. Confused, she checked her spam folder and it turned out she had been selected. On August 19th of this year, she started her journey at UIUC.
Her plan is to come back and continue as a faculty in BracU. She cherishes the bond she made as a faculty with her students and feels glad that even now they still remain in contact. Besides that, she also wants to work on policy level and implement the changes in teaching she feels valid. She feels that people in general are still unaware about learning disabilities and she wants to address that issue. Ms. Naz also added, “I personally felt more comfortable with visual learning as a student”.
She will be receiving a regular stipend with this Fulbright scholarship as well as other facilities. But the best part for her was when she found out our Chief Adviser, Dr. Yunus is also a former recipient of this scholarship. “I could not believe that I can call him my alumni!”, she exclaimed. Additionally, Ms. Naz is also one of the only three recipients of ITE (International Teacher Education) scholarship, globally. Her remarkable journey is one to inspire and serve to us as motivation.
