When applying for the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, you have to select a country you'd like to teach in and why. I had no idea what country to choose because there are so many to choose from! Did you know that there are 206 countries on the planet? To help me decide, I wrote down a list of my interests and things that I care about deeply. By the time I finished my list, it included some topics such as diversity, helping students succeed and saving the environment. I used this list to narrow down my options. For example, I was able to eliminate places such as the Nordic countries, such as Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, where sustainability is important, but the population is homogeneous, or lacking in diversity. I was also able to cross off some countries in Africa where there is a lot of diversity, but sustainability isn't a primary focus of some governments. In the end, Malaysia checked all my boxes: it's the most diverse country in Southeast Asia, and its government is working to make it more environmentally sustainable. I packed my bags and took a twenty-one hour flight from the J.F.K. airport to Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia.
To prepare for Malaysia, I went to the library and read about its history.
