Elsa Moseley is excited about the opportunity to correspond with Russian high school teachers and students without leaving the United States.
The East Central University senior from Sulphur has received a Virtual Student Federal Service internship with the U.S. Department of State. Through this internship, Moseley will correspond for a year with Russian high school teachers to design and implement teaching objectives for Russian high school students in the “Russia Access” program – an extracurricular program to teach English to talented youth from low-income families.
“I’ll be skyping with Russian high school students to share about American culture,” said Moseley, a political science major and Russian studies minor.
Through the internship, which lasts approximately 5-10 hours a week, Moseley will be matched with Russian high school teachers in several underserved areas to jointly work with students.
“The program takes place in areas where students traditionally don’t have many opportunities to interact with an American,” Moseley said.Moseley doesn’t mind that the internship is an unpaid position.
“If you want to learn how to work with the federal government, this is a great way to get experience because it does not require you to move to a new city,” said Moseley. “As long as you have an internet connection, there are positions ranging from designing national park brochures to improving job satisfaction with the Bureau of Indian Affairs through data analysis. You’re advancing U.S. interests by fostering exchange across the nation and the world. I highly recommend students interested in working for any federal agency to apply for this program.”
Going to Russia and meeting with students at the end of the nine-month session is a possibility for Moseley.
“Elsa landing this opportunity is not only a testament to her hard work and dedication, but it speaks volumes to the way our Political Science Department has prepared her for this venture,” said ECU President Dr. Katricia Pierson. “It just shows that she is making the most of her educational experience by combining her major with her minor to make this work.”
Moseley was selected as a 2016 Russian Scholar Laureate by the American Council of Teachers of Russian and has served as president of ECU’s Russian Club. She spent some time in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia in May of 2015.
She also represented ECU’s Global Education Program while studying at ECU’s sister-university in Limoges, France in 2016.
Moseley has served as president of ECU’s Rotaract Club and was a junior representative for the university’s Student Senate.
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