When Jane Lundgren says she feels a connection to the Russian language, she means it. “My first words were in Russian,” she says, “although I decided as a two-year-old it wasn’t very cool to speak two languages and lost all of the Russian I knew.” The BYU grad didn’t grow up in a Russian-speaking country, however; her connection came through her mother, who had been a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Ukraine and who spoke Russian to Lundgren when she was young. “We grew up eating borsch and black bread and playing with matryoshki dolls,” Lundgren recalls. “I grew up feeling a connection to Russia and Ukraine.”
Now, that love of Russian has taken her to eastern Europe to live and teach English in Latvia as part of the Fulbright US Student Program.
More for Me to Do
When Lundgren started at BYU, she initially planned to major in microbiology. Her own mission call changed her focus toward Russian, just as her mother’s mission initially introduced her to the language. “I was assigned to serve in Novosibirsk, Russia, but never went due to COVID-19,” she explains. “I felt like there was still more for me to do with Russian-speaking communities.” Around this time, she also decided that she wanted to go to medical school. “I figured that if I was going to be swimming in science and medicine my whole professional life, I might as well pursue a completely different love while at BYU.” After returning from her mission, she changed her major to Russian and later did an internship in Riga, Latvia.
After graduation, Lundgren worked for six months as a middle school science teacher in South Carolina, all the while deciding what her next step was going to be. “Fulbright was one of many options I considered (and applied to) for the year following graduation,” she explains. “I learned about Fulbright after someone a few years older than me from my home ward in Cincinnati received a grant.”
Her internship in Riga made it easy to decide which country to apply for. “I fell in love with Latvia,” she says. “Having been there for a few months made it much easier to write about the country and culture, and I wanted to end up somewhere my Russian would be useful.”
The next question, what sort of grant to pursue, wasn’t so easy, but she eventually decided to apply for an English Teaching Assistant (ETA) grant. She explains, “I settled on it because I felt like it would give me more points of connection in the city, more chances to be a part of wherever I would be living.” It also tied into her interests, past experiences, and future plans. “I also have always enjoyed teaching, and I believe that being a good teacher is an important skill for a physician. I think that [teaching in South Carolina] both strengthened my application and solidified my love of teaching.”
Lundgren got her application together with the help of the Kennedy Center’s scholarships office and especially of Amy McLaughlin of the BYU National Scholarships and Prestigious Fellowships office. “Working with Amy through the application process made it so much easier,” Jane says. “When I started, I wasn’t sure what Fulbright was looking for, but she helped me decide how to focus my experiences to best communicate my motivation and identity. It was also really helpful to have a second pair of eyes looking over essays to make sure they were coming across the way that I thought they were.”
After deciding to apply in May 2023, she received news that she’d gotten the grant in April 2024. By the end of August 2024, she was living in Latvia.
Life in Latvia
Lundgren is living in Daugavpils, a city at the southern edge of the country, close to the Lithuanian and Belarusian borders. While Russians and Russian speakers make up a significant minority of the Latvian population as a whole, Daugavpils has an even higher concentration: more than 80% of the inhabitants speak Russian, making Lundgren’s Russian-speaking skills particularly helpful.
She’s currently the only Fulbrighter in Daugavpils; however, she says, “there are 3 other ETAs in the country, so it’s been fun to take little trips to see each other. The next closest ones are an hour and a half away by bus.”
She splits her time between two secondary schools in the area, teaching grades 6 through 12. “One of my schools is pretty rural—about a 45-minute bus ride out of the city—and the other is just a 10-minute walk from the city center,” she says. When she’s not teaching, she volunteers at Daugavpils’ USA Information Center, which hosts a community English club and other events for the community and schools throughout the year.
She rents an apartment near the center of town, which she says is nice “because Daugavpils is a relatively quiet city and very walkable, especially if you’re near the center. I’m a 5-minute walk to the train station, 7-minute walk to the bus station, and 2-minute walk to church.” Her experiences in the local branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been memorable. “The branch here is small—we typically have about 12–15 people each week, including me and 4 missionaries—but it’s a very tight-knit, special group. I’ve loved getting to know them.”
An International Adventure
Her time in Latvia has given Lundgren experiences that she hopes will enrich the rest of her life, especially her future career in the medical field. “I’ve always said I want to be the kind of physician who will take the time to see and listen to individuals instead of checking patient IDs or stats off of a schedule,” she says. “Living in Latvia has given me additional opportunities to work with, interact with, and try to understand people who come from completely different backgrounds than I do. They have different perspectives, beliefs, and customs, and I love learning how to navigate and appreciate differences. I’m confident that I will constantly be working with people from different backgrounds as a physician, so Fulbright is a great intensive course on how to do it well.”
She also hopes that, wherever her future takes her, she’ll be able to stay connected with eastern Europe: “I’m not sure what that will look like, but I hope that the skills I’ve learned and connections I’ve made will open up opportunities to serve in the future.”
For students who are considering applying for a Fulbright, she offers the following advice: “Figure out what you’re passionate about and let that shine in your application. And think about what you bring to the table. What’s unique about your experiences? Fulbright is a really cool opportunity to live in another country and culture on your own, so treat it like an adventure.”
Interested in learning more about the Fulbright program and how to apply? Click here.