Madison Taylor, from Pittsburgh, PA, recently graduated from Penn State with a major in Biology and a minor in Global Health, but she didn’t wait for graduation to use her passion for public health, education, and the environment to make a difference. While a student, Maddie was involved with the Presidential Leadership Academy, founded Schreyer for Women, attended the Emory International Global Health Case Competition in 2017 as the only undergrad on Penn State’s team, and developed and was a teaching assistant for a course on Society and Global Disease Management. Now, she’s in Malaysia on a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship.
The application process wasn’t always easy. She writes, “After spending a whole summer working on my essays, I walked into that interview only to have the panel tell me the essays didn’t sound like me or capture who I was in person. I was discouraged to hear this, but with only a week until the application was due, I sold my football ticket for that weekend and sat in a coffee shop all day on Saturday, re-writing my essays, this time from the heart. It turned out to be worth my time, because I ended up getting the fellowship many months later!”
Maddie is spending a full year assisting English teachers and spreading U.S. goodwill in Malaysia.