riverguide

Thanks for the compliment! I was accepted to both the AUC and the AMIDEAST programs and I would definitely recommend AMIDEAST over AUC. My preference and choice is because AMIDEAST is in downtown Cairo and we lived in our own apartment and developed a feel for the neighborhood and Cairo itself. We learned to live and survive in the second largest city in the Middle East and most of our friends were Egyptian and we tended to spend a lot more time with them than with our fellow study abroad/ex pat community. It was a great experience. AUC is outside of Cairo and is a walled, secure facility. My room mate in the AMIDEAST program and good friend was a Boren Scholar and he relocated in the spring to Jordan after the Egyptians crossed the Rubicon. I was at AMIDEAST for the year long program but the Arabic classes, after Middlebury, were not challenging enough so I enrolled in Middlebury in Alexandria for the spring 2011 semester. I hated to leave my friends. If you have not been in an immersion program, AUC and AMIDEAST should be fine and are a great intro into colloquial Egyptian. The professors and the staff at AMIDEAST were awsome. I do not know of any programs in Saudi Arabia but I am looking. The friends I made at the Middlebury Alexandria program were the best Arabic students I have encountered to date. Their Arabic skills were amazing. We all bonded pretty tight with our Arabic abilities. After you escape and go to ground in a safe house, sleeping with your shoes on so you can bug out, with the sounds of automatic weapons filling the night air, you tend to bond even more, lol. There are a lot of us from the Spring Middlebury Alexandria program looking to return someday. I would also recommend the American University of Beirut but the Boren people may not let you go there because of the travel warning. I love Beirut and I take advanced Arabic and Lebanese Arabic downtown at an institute the university referred me to. I tested out of the Arabic classes at AUB. Middlebury in Jordan is probably hands down the best remaining program left, outside of Egypt and Syria. I do not know much about the African programs. The problem with Jordan is that there are a lot of English speakers and you have to be militant about speaking Arabic. It is also expensive. Its a great country though. I am presently looking at a program in Oman as well. I have some great friends in Cairo and Alexandria but after seeing the police stations burned, the government building torched, the armories and the banks looted and the police force either non existent or in hiding its tough to recommend Egypt at the moment although I would prefer to return to Alexandria if possible. Once you have been through the experience and you realize that lives, liberty and everything you're used to can change in a heartbeat, you start to plan carefully -and always have a plan B. Egypt was basically a repressive police state living under emergency powers. When the security forces left there was a lawless vacuum that still hasn't been filled. I am all for the revolution but the transition is tricky. I long to return to Egypt but I don't believe it will calm down in the fall. Remember: there are elections on the horizon.

You probably should contact them yourself, depending on your circumstance. I doubt the programs in Damascus will occur. My firend, Tik Root, who was at Middlebury in Alexandria with me, went to Damascus as I went to Beirut after we were extracted. The secret police arrested him near one of the protests and he spent 3 weeks in prison before they would let somebody talk to him. He is now in the states and back at Middlebury. Middlebury's program in Alexandria is still on but I doubt, given what I'm hearing about Egypt at the moment, that it will take place in the fall of 2011, perhaps in the spring 2012 it will be a "go." The Middlebury program is incredible and is only surpassed by the CASA program; I'm considering the CASA program, but sadly, the study points are Damascus and Cairo. I've been accepted to the CET program in Aleppo and that closed down over night and the students were extracted on April 13. They are still planning their program for next year but I think we should have a back up plan. CET has an outstanding reputation, is an immersion program also and is only for serious Arabic students. Middlebury and CET require two years of Arabic and an intense Arabic essay to apply. CASA requires three years of Arabic and a series of Arabic essays to apply. I have 3 1/2 years of Arabic and Arabic dialects and CASA is the program I'd like to attend in grad school -or between grad and under grad programs. Middlebury has a program in Jordan and I am considering that, although it won't have the same benefits as Aleppo. Aleppo is the second largest city in Syria and very few speak english there and the region is known for its loyalty to Assad. I chose Aleppo over Damascus because I learned that the city is not westernized and no one speaks english so it truly is an immersion program. I am only interested in immersion programs at the moment. Middlebury both spoiled me and tortured me in that regard. It is the only way to learn. Because Aleppo is pro Assad is why CET thinks that it may go next fall and their program for this summer is still a "go." What I learned "at the revolution" is that -in these times- you have to have a back up plan becuase if your program is cancelled right before or right after it starts you could end up sitting on the bench for the semester. With language studies, we need to keep moving forward and nurturing our skills. I would not want to study Arabic in Israel. I would study Hebrew there but not Arabic. Besides I don't want an Israeli stamp on my passport while I'm completing my Arabic studies. Security studies in Israel are excellent from what I've heard and I may spend a summer taking those courses. I am not trying to be flippant about the Boren people. They were very polite and helpful and you should touch base with them yourself, given the present future ambiguity. I hope we all make it to DC and I hope we get a chance to meet. If you're planning to study in Syria it means that you are a serious "player" when it comes to Arabic and I hope we get a chance to cross paths.

I'm an undergraduate International Relations (w/ a Middle East focus)/French Language/Islamic Studies/Arabic Language and Literature major from the University of Kentucky applying for a Boren Scholarship to study in Syria for the Fall 2011 & Spring 2012. I've also studied at the Middlebury 8 week Intensive Arabic program at Mills, at AMIDEAST in Cairo, at Middlebury in Alexandria, at the Saifi Institute in Beirut and at the American University of Beirut. I am working on developing my diglossic skills in Egyptian, Lebanese and Levantine dialects. I received the email in late March asking for updated financial information. For those applying to Egypt or Syria, where your program and ability to study there may be in doubt, I contacted the Boren office and was informed that if we are selected but our program is cancelled or our school won't let us attend because of a travel warning (I was extracted out of Egypt and it wasn't pretty and am now in Beirut), the Boren people will work with us in finding anohter country in which to study. I know of several Boren scholars in Egypt who were relocated to Jordan and Morocco this spring. Good luck to all and I hope we all make it.