OmarAUC

Hey, Sadly I never took with Dr. Seikely, but have many friends who did (and loved her). She taught undergraduate classes called Zionism and Modern Judaism, and History of Israel/Palestine, and towards the end was Director of the Middle East Studies Center. Was very active, always attending/organizing on and off campus events and had several ongoing research projects. Many of the MES grad students say the program definitely isn't the same without her. Regarding the word 'convert'-I feel that in this context, it's appropriate. Many people who start off in something conventional like Business/Engineering then end up doing History/Anthro/Literature because they love it/are good at it always say they were 'converted' or 'saw the light.' You should definitely encourage your student to minor in History. If she's doing American Diploma AP History should transfer over as credit which will make a minor a viable option.

Brilliant! I graduated from a (British) private school in Cairo a few years ago, and although I took History as an elective throughout my 4 years of high school, I never really considered studying History at university. Simply not 'done'-I come from a family where the humanities and social sciences are valued, but even then, only disciplines like Economics/Political Science/Law are considered 'acceptable.' At college, first started off with Political Science, and began taking some History courses, and after some soul-searching, decided to do the obvious thing and major in History as well. It's definitely true that many of the people who do major in History in Egypt do so because it's an 'easy' major, which is a shame. Egyptian/Middle East history is such a rich field, and so under-developed and under-studied, that we need more historians, not less. Plus, Egyptian students have the advantage of being bilingual whereas foreigners have to go through several years of intensive training to work with Arabic sources. Of course, there's no rule that Egyptians need to specialize in ME/Egyptian history, although understandably that's what many gravitate towards.