Hello fellow LAHers! (Which I'm guessing most of you are)
As you might have guessed from reading the web address, this blog was created for the most part to document the study abroad process for LAH students. I'm going to try my best to provide info on all of the details of getting through applying, acceptance, travel, and life as a UT student living abroad. Not all of it is fun, in fact some of it is downright tedious, but I have a feeling that studying abroad will be worth it in the end. With my statement of purpose complete let's begin the introductions.
About myself: My name is Laura Kandle and I'm a third-year LAH student at The University of Texas at Austin. I am majoring in international relations and global policy and if you haven't heard of that major yet it's because wasn't offered until last semester (Spring 2010). The major right now is built upon finding a focus-economics, culture, politics, or security basically- and a region. My focus is culture and my region is The Middle East and as part of my major requirements I have to study abroad in the region of my focus. So that explains part of the reason why I'm going to Egypt next Spring. The other part has to do with the fact that since I was a little kid peeling through the pages of my mom's national geographic magazine I've wanted to go to Egypt. I'm not going to lie, ancient Egypt fascinated me and visiting the pyramids, standing next to the sphinx, and sailing down the Nile was definitely a part of my childhood daydreams. In fact I used to spend hours playing the city-building PC game Pharaoh. Anyone else....no? Alright. Obviously Egypt has changed since the time of the Pharaohs, but recently I've become fascinated with modern Egyptian culture as well. Now thats a long story so I'm not going to tell it in this already lengthy blog post. Lets just say culture and politics are my thing.
Beyond school I love to sing and play cello and am currently a member of the LAH music ensemble and if you haven't checked out one of their concerts yet you should. My freshman year in college I joined sailing team and fell in love with the sport, but ended up having little time actually left for schoolwork so I had to quit at the end of the year. However I'm not going to miss out on the opportunity to sail on the Nile, and one of the first extracurricular activities I will be looking for at The American University in Cairo is a sailing club to join. I am an avid trekkie and you can win me over anytime with a TNG season box set. (if you haven't guessed already there's going to be plenty of nerdiness in this blog) I write for readthehorn.com and I live in the Arabic House Co-op. If I'm not writing a paper I don't tend to watch my grammar so there's bound to be a few mistakes in this blog. I also love painting, comics, camping, long walks on the beach....and before this sounds too much like a match.com profile I'm going to move on and get back to the point of this blog.
First things first, the application process: The study abroad application process takes just as long, if not longer, than applying to a regular college, so start early and plan well ahead. The first time I went to the SAO (Study Abroad Office) I was told that it can take up to a year to transfer credits from another University, which means that if you want to study abroad and use the credits you earned there to graduate, do it junior year at latest. One of the first things I did this semester was go to the mandatory orientation for study-abroad, which you can find times and dates for on the SAO website.
After the orientation you are cleared to make an advising appointment with your SAO advisor. MAKE THE APPOINTMENT RIGHT WHEN YOU GET BACK. It can be easy to forget about all of the things you need to study abroad, so do it all as soon as possible. Most applications are due mid-October to early November and you'll need to get letters of recommendation and write plenty of essays, so the earlier you figure out where you want to study the better.
The SAO advisor for the region you want to study in will be able to give you some good ideas about particular places and universities that you can go to. After all, that is their job. When I talked to Lia, my SAO advisor, about wanting to study abroad in an Arabic-speaking country she was able to immediately pull up two options. The first one was AUC and the second one was a university in Lebanon. I immediately told her that if I could study in Cairo thats where I wanted to go and so we started planning out how I could make it all work. It turns out that The American University in Cairo has an affiliated program with UT. This means that tuition WILL NOT be the same price as it is for UT. If you want to go into a program where tuition will be the same, you should look into UT exchange programs or UT faculty led programs.
Sorry everone but I'm going to cut it off here for the night. I hate to leave it at this but considering how long this blog entry has gotten I think its safe to call it quits for now and finish up talking about the application process in the next one. Tisbah ala khair and goodnight!
