This year, Bowdoin’s German department has announced that three seniors have received fellowships to study or work in Germany or Austria.

Dechan Dalrymple and Kenzie Novak have both won English Teaching Assistantships in Austria for the 2013-2014 academic year, organized and funded through a partnership between the Fulbright Commission and the Austrian government.

Jeremy Lewis has received the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Professionals, a yearlong fellowship for study and work in Germany.

Dalrymple will be working as an English teaching assistant at a small boarding school in Wieselburg, a little more than an hour west of Vienna. “I was really interested in working as a teaching assistant in Austria because it would not only give me the opportunity to gain some working experience, but also give me the chance to discover a new part of the world before continuing my studies,” said Dalrymple. “As a German major, I love every opportunity to speak the language and therefore going to a German speaking country was a logical choice for me. I have had the pleasure of learning about Germany and German culture during my study abroad in the University of Tübingen and this opportunity now lets me become more familiar with Austria and Austrian culture.”

Novak said she will be teaching in Waidhofen an der Ybbs, a small town in lower Austria. From mid-September to May, she will teach English to students at two different high schools. As a German major, she said the many German courses she took at Bowdoin helped her develop her language skills and deepen her understanding of German culture. Last summer, Novak also received a Preston Public Interest Career Fund grant from Bowdoin, in which she worked at a residential treatment program for youth, ages 12-18.  “I think this experience will be really helpful next year when I’m teaching a group of high school students,” she said.

Lewis is one of 75 participants out of more than 600 applicants who will attend a two-month intensive German language course, study at a German university of professional school for four months, and complete a five-month internship with a German company in his career field. The youth-exchange program is financially supported by the U.S. Department of State under the authority of the Fulbright-Hays Act.

Lewis said his interest in Germany “took root at Bowdoin.” Although he studied German in high school, he didn’t start studying the language again at college until his junior year. Then he “found a warm home with the department, a friendly crowd at the weekly Stammtish, or language table, that the department hosts every week, and dedicated, endearing classmates, who were eager to accompany me in extracurricular language learning, including a German radio show on WBOR.” After Lewis wraps up the university study portion of his year, he’ll intern for Razorfish, a digital marketing and advertising firm in Berlin.