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After graduating from Carthage, Lorin Bucur ’26 will leave the Midwest for Taiwan to spend a year teaching at a school on a prestigious Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship.

Lorin Bucur ’26 on a 2026 J-Term study tour in the Philippines.Lorin has a way with words. She’s been a leader in the Carthage Model United Nations organization and has made important contributions to that group’s successes in the last few years. She speaks Chinese and Indonesian, in addition to English. And she’s been part of a prestigious US State Department internship program teaching English online to young people in Ukraine and Romania. At Carthage, she is a double major in Chinese and political science and a minor in economics, and she plans to pursue a career in diplomacy.

Fulbright ETAs, as they are known, serve as ambassadors for US culture in their host countries and work with local teachers, adding authenticity to local classes. They often engage with members of the local community as well. Lorin has not yet received her specific assignment but is likely to be working with younger students. She is eager to share elements of her Chicago-area culture with her classes — blues, house music, and improv theatre, for example — to help them better understand US cultures while improving their English.

Lorin Bucur ’26 in Denmark for the Copenhagen Business School Model United Nations Conference.This is not the first national honor that Lorin has won, and this will not be her first international experience. The native of suburban Berwyn, Illinois was a Boren Scholar in 2025-26 and spent the fall semester of her senior year studying in Indonesia through the Boren Program. She also won a Critical Language Scholarship administered by the US State Department to study Chinese. In addition, she has studied abroad at the National Taiwan Normal University in Taiwan. She participated in J-Term study tours to Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea, and Cuba. In addition to being involved in Model UN at Carthage, Lorin has served as the vice president of and has worked as the study abroad fellow.

In her Fulbright application, Lorin wrote about how juggling her classes, her senior thesis, her internship, her campus job, and her leadership positions in campus organizations has made her flexible and adaptable. And she reflected on the ways that her experiences abroad have each required her to “give up comfort, embrace an unfamiliar environment, and view changes as opportunities for growth rather than disruptions” — preparing her well for her year ahead in Taiwan.

Lorin Bucur ’26 on a trip to Mount Merapi during her fall 2025 semester abroad in Indonesia.Professor Greg Baer, director of Student Fellowships, who worked closely with Lorin during the application process, emphasizes that Lorin “is sophisticated, down-to-earth, mature, funny, and very intelligent while always being open to learning more. She will be an excellent representative of Carthage and of the United States in Taiwan.”

The process of applying for this prestigious Fulbright Scholarship started about a year ago for Lorin, when she began talking with Carthage professors and planning the essays that became part of her Fulbright application. After many drafts and interviews with Carthage’s Fulbright Committee, Lorin submitted her application last fall. She was named a semi-finalist by the US Fulbright Commission over the winter, and then her application was sent on to Taiwan to be considered by the Taiwanese Fulbright Commission. The results were just announced. As a Fulbright ETA, Lorin will be paid a stipend to cover her costs for a year in Taiwan and will have her travel costs covered as well.

Lorin Bucur ’26 during a trip to Bali while studying abroad in Indonesia.Carthage has had a successful history of supporting students from a wide variety of departments who have gone on to win Fulbright Scholarships. For several of the last years, the US State Department has named Carthage a leading producer of Fulbright grants. Lorin is the most recent of a long series of Carthaginians applying their liberal arts educations to the challenging demands of living and teaching abroad as part of the Fulbright Program.

The Fulbright Program, the flagship international academic exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government, has fostered mutual understanding between the United States and other countries since 1946.

According to the US State Department’s description of the Fulbright program: “In partnership with more than 160 countries worldwide, the Fulbright Program offers international educational and cultural exchange programs for dedicated and accomplished students, scholars, artists, teachers, and professionals of all backgrounds to study, teach, or pursue important research and professional projects…Awardees are chosen through an open, merit-based process for their academic achievement and leadership potential. Fulbright is unique in its binational structure and noted for its merit-based selection process and academic prestige…Fulbright alumni from the United States and around the world have gone on to achieve distinction in government, science, the arts, business, philanthropy, and education. Among the ranks of Fulbright alumni are 61 Nobel Prize recipients, 75 MacArthur Foundation Fellows, 89 Pulitzer Prize winners, and 40 current or former heads of state or government.”

Sponsoring Department, Office, or Organization:

Student Fellowships

For more information, contact:

Prof. Greg Baer: gbaer@carthage.edu