Soren Frykholm '16 has received a Fulbright Teaching Assistantship to Brazil, becoming the fourth Colorado College recipient of a Fulbright this year. Additionally, the college has two Fulbright alternates, with the total of six Fulbrights setting a record for CC.
Frykholm, who graduated with distinction with a degree in Romance Languages, spent a semester in Salvador, Brazil, volunteering twice a week as an English instructor at a community organization called Siloé of the Lobato comunidade. Writes Frykholm in his Fulbright application, "I faced many new challenges, including recruiting students, gauging literacy, and developing my own instructional curriculum. After my experience as a GED instructor, I understood the importance of engaging students in an environment in which they felt comfortable making mistakes."
Upon returning to Colorado College, he became a Portuguese tutor in the Romance Languages Department. "Tutoring students at the university level gave me the final motivation needed to pursue a Fulbright ETA position, knowing that I enjoy and am effective working in this context," he says.
He also worked as a GED tutor, helping Hispanic students develop English language skills. Through two years of collaboration with the class professor, "I learned to assess students' degrees of English proficiency, cater to their individual learning needs, and reinforce the supportive classroom culture already in place," he says. "I was inspired by the personal transformations I witnessed as students gained confidence in their English abilities and worked to pass their tests."
For his senior thesis, Frykholm translated an academic journal on racism in Brazil from Portuguese to Spanish.
Frykholm also was a member of the CC men's soccer team, and during his three seasons with the team, he helped lead the Tigers to a combined overall record of 45-10-6 (.787).
He hopes to continue sharing his passion for soccer while a Fulbright Teaching Assistant. "I've dreamed about organizing the opportunity for kids from favelas to play soccer competitively - in jerseys and with a coach," he says in his application. "The extensive background that I bring as a youth coach and an all-American college player, as well as my experience previously playing soccer in these kind of communities tell me not only that there is a demand for this kind of project, but that I could be the person to do it. Indeed, soccer is perhaps the world's most universal mechanism for exchange, and I intend to leverage my passion for it."
Frykholm also has received the Jim McKay Scholarship, was named a recipient of the highly prestigious NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship, and was named the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Man of the Year in 2017.