Madelyn Helgerson awarded Gilman Scholarship to Student Teach Abroad

Elementary education senior Madelyn Helgerson was once unsure if studying abroad would be possible. Now, thanks to a Gilman Scholarship, she is preparing to student teach in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany, from October to December 2025.

The U.S. Department of State’s Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship helps with high financial need fund study abroad opportunities. All Gilman Scholars must be Pell Grant recipients. Over 70 percent of scholars are from rural areas and small towns, and more than half are first-generation college students.

For the most recent application cycle, the program received a record 17,000 submissions, and just 3,500 students were selected for scholarships. Each scholar, including Helgerson, will gain skills critical to national security and economic prosperity.

“The time I will spend teaching abroad will allow me to learn and utilize my teaching abilities in new environments,” Helgerson said. “My time will be spent learning how to adapt as a speaker of a foreign language, something that my future multilingual students will experience. The empathy and skills that I will learn through this experience will ultimately make me a much better teacher to meet the needs of all my students.”

Along with her elementary education major, Helgerson is pursuing a minor in learning technologies and endorsements in reading/language arts and English as a Second Language. Student teaching in Germany will fulfill her requirements to become an English Language Learning teacher, while also giving her the chance to broaden her horizons.

She sees her upcoming experience as a chance to better understand the challenges her future students may face.

“Developing cultural competence can help me grow into a better person and a more culturally responsive teacher,” she said. “Culturally responsive teaching is a huge push to be implemented in education at this time, and there is no better way to develop an understanding of culturally responsive education than to put myself into a new environment and adapt to meet that community’s needs.”

At Iowa State, Helgerson has worked toward becoming the best teacher she can be after graduation. For her, that means gaining experience in multilingual education.

“Through the Gilman Scholarship, I will have new opportunities to grow as a person and to grow into the educator that my future students deserve,” she said.

Applications for the Gilman Scholarship are currently open for students whose study abroad programs or internships begin between December 2025 and October 2026. The deadline to apply is October 3, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time.