A New Twist on Study Abroad

Each year, more than 300 international undergraduates come to study abroad on the Hilltop. For the first time, five of those students are juniors from the School of Foreign Service in Qatar who chose to head west and check out life at the "other" Georgetown.

"I wanted to experience the original, traditional Georgetown in its original place," says Lebanese student Mark Saliba.

Saliba, who is living in Copley Hall with a roommate from Cameroon, had a particular interest in taking classes not offered at SFS-Qatar, such as Death and the Afterlife. He thinks other students in Doha should take advantage of the exchange opportunity.

"It is such an eye-opening experience," he says. "Georgetown's way of thought and critical analysis is very important for the way international law, diplomacy and politics is enacted in the world."

Saliba also believes the diversity of opinions among the Georgetown student body is important for him and his classmates to experience.

The program is the first exchange of its kind between the Main Campus and Qatar location. Several of the students are here for the entire year, while others are going back to Qatar in January. Additional students from Qatar will arrive for the spring semester.

SFS-Qatar Dean Jim Reardon-Anderson says encountering an array of options is why study abroad has always been part of the plan in Doha.

"For these students, going to Main Campus gives them the two dimensions of a Georgetown education we can't give them -- the breadth of the course offerings, and the other is the breadth of the Main Campus experience," he says. "It's important that students go and bring back something of this character of the Georgetown experience."

Syrian Lubna Kayyali, also from SFS-Qatar, got a taste of that variety by participating in a dance performance at the annual south Asian cultural event Rangila this fall. Kayyali, who also works part time as a student ambassador at the Wagner Alumni House, says she hopes to return with ideas for other activities to start at the campus in Qatar.

"Having all these options, I'm going to miss that," she says. "I will miss the class atmosphere because it is challenging -- people don't share the same views as you do."

In addition to taking courses on international law and celebrity culture in America, several of the SFS-Qatar students are in class with a familiar face. Government professor Josh Mitchell, one of the first faculty members to teach in Doha, is now on Main Campus teaching a course on Tocqueville and democracy in America.

"Most [of the students] wanted to come here, in part for curricular diversity, but they also came to see what it was like to take courses with predominantly American students," Mitchell says. "Here we assume democracy is the universal political form and there the presumption is constitutional monarchy. It's a different set of suppositions."

Students from Qatar also have experienced American life outside the classroom, with road trips to New York and Annapolis, and meals at Wisemiller's Deli and Philadelphia Pizza in Georgetown.

Reardon-Anderson says that aside from the standard administrative challenges on both sides, getting the study-abroad program up and running happened quickly. He says Georgetown is the only program in Education City with a dedicated study-abroad operation, and he hopes to see the program expand.

"I think we'll encourage the diversity in both directions," he says. "We'll encourage students to study abroad. We'll bring students from Main Campus and we'd also like to bring students from anywhere because it's an enriching dimension of our program to have students from Europe and elsewhere in the U.S. who could meet the standards."

This spring, two students from the Hilltop will study abroad at SFS-Qatar. While Reardon-Anderson said the course offerings in Doha are particularly attractive to students studying international politics, the Middle East region or Arabic language, the option is open to everyone.

The study-abroad program is just one type of exchange taking place between the two campuses. Each year since opening in 2005, SFS-Qatar has brought a group of freshmen to Main Campus for their spring break. In addition, a videoconference course with six students in Washington and more than 20 students in Doha brings the D.C. class to Qatar during spring break for collaborative academic group work.

Reardon-Anderson also hopes to involve students from Washington on service-learning trips sponsored by SFS-Qatar.

"We do service-learning trips to India, Jordan and Kenya," he says. "We'd like to make Doha a launching pad for development studies and other Main Campus studies."

Source: Blue & Gray

December 10, 2007