World Languages Graduate Turns Elective Requirement Into Career

ATLANTA - Tyler Lewchuck (B.A. '26) did not arrive at Georgia State University planning to fall in love with Japan.

He initially enrolled at Georgia State as a computer science major. When his degree program required him to take a foreign language elective, choosing Japanese was supposed to be a simple box to check. It became much more.

"That's when I truly fell in love with it," Lewchuck said. "It went from just being a class to fulfill a requirement to the focus of my degree and a big part of what I want to do for work after college."

This spring, Lewchuck will leave Georgia State with a Bachelor of Arts in World Languages and Cultures, with a concentration in Japanese language and society. It's the kind of pivot that, looking back, seems almost inevitable.

During his college career, Lewchuck studied abroad in Tokyo, where he formed lasting friendships with both American and Japanese students. When he returned to Atlanta and learned that the Japanese program would be hosting a group of visiting students, he showed up - and then kept showing up.

He organized outings to places like Stone Mountain, the alpine village of Helen, Ga., and even Costco, where his Japanese guests got a hands-on comparison between their version of the warehouse chain and the American reality.

"I treated it like hanging out with other groups of friends," he said. "I wanted to give them the chance to see other parts of Georgia outside of just downtown."

Those friendships, Lewchuck noted, have endured. When he recently returned to Japan on vacation, the connections he made in Atlanta were still waiting for him.

Those outings were just the beginning of his involvement with Japanese culture in Atlanta. Through an assistantship with the Japan-America Society of Georgia, Lewchuck helped manage the organization's social media presence and grade student coursework. He served as a guide for students from Tokyo's Obirin University, taking them on tours of local companies to experience Atlanta's business community. He also went to events that underscored the depth of those ties, including a dinner gala attended by the mayor of Fukuoka.

"The relationship between Atlanta and Japan is important, both for business and education," he said. "And I got to experience that firsthand."

Lewchuck also spent time as an assistant at the International Charter Academy of Georgia (ICAG), working twice a week with fifth- and seventh-grade students in a dual-language immersion environment.

Watching teachers design tests for students at different levels in two languages reshaped how he understood instruction. But he wasn't just watching. Lewchuck worked directly with students and, over time, the impact became tangible. Students and teachers alike handed him thank-you notes and gifts as they marked the students' progress.

"Making an impact on students' education and seeing their progress made me feel like teaching is what I am meant to do," he said.

His third assistantship took him inside the curriculum itself. Working with DeLizzia Camacho, a senior lecturer and Japanese program coordinator in the Department of World Languages and Cultures, Lewchuck has been helping revise and supplement lower-division Japanese course materials - resources that future instructors will use long after he has left campus.

"Knowing that it will outlast me is quite fulfilling," he said. "It feels like my work will truly mean something."

In the classroom, Lewchuck has been as invested in his peers as he is in his own performance. Shuai Li, a professor and director of undergraduate studies in the Department of World Languages and Cultures, noted that Lewchuck consistently supported his classmates by sharing notes, explaining concepts in different ways and asking questions aloud to give others permission to admit they were confused, too.

That instinct, Lewchuck said, is a major reason why teaching appeals to him.

"Helping and supporting others is fulfilling, and it also helps me to solidify my own understanding of those topics," he said. "It's a big part of why I want to pursue teaching as a career."

His sights are set on teaching English as a second or foreign language, and that goal is soon to become a reality. Lewchuck recently accepted a position with the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program, where he will serve as an assistant language teacher at an assigned school in Japan. Despite the move abroad, he hopes to eventually return to Georgia State to pursue a master's degree.

"Who knows?" he said. "Maybe one day I'll end up teaching here alongside the staff that helped guide me down my path."

- Story by André Walker | Photo by Raven Schley