![Laura Becker '16 in China.](https://s3.amazonaws.com/mediacdn.hamilton.edu/images/16:9/980/beckerlaurajpg.jpg)
Major: Chinese
Hometown: New Hartford, N.Y.
High School: New Hartford High School
Becker has been interested in teaching for some time. She taught English to elementary students in rural China in the summer of 2015 and tutored refugees at the Refugee Center in Utica while she was in high school.
In 2013 through the STARTALK program at Hamilton she assisted local middle school students at a Chinese summer language summer camp. She has tutored for Hamilton’s Chinese and English for Speakers of Other Languages departments and is an office assistant for the Associated Colleges in China program.
Becker was elected to Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society in February and is a Dean’s List student. She is active in the Hamilton America Chinese Exchange Club and was a site coordinator for Hamilton Association for Volunteering Outreach and Charity.
After her return to the U.S., Becker plans to pursue a master’s degree in and certification in teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.
The Fulbright ETA Program places U.S. students as English teaching assistants in schools or universities overseas, thus improving foreign students’ English language abilities and knowledge of the United States while increasing their own language skills and knowledge of the host country. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, the Fulbright is the largest U.S. international exchange program.
WUTR-TV featured Laura Becker in a newscast on April 27.