Study Abroad in Cairo: "Taking a Chance on Myself Meant Taking a Chance on Others"

By Emily Costello ‘23

Studying abroad has been the most memorable experience I’ve had since I arrived at Bard. During my junior year, I was fortunate enough to study in Cairo, Egypt for four months, where I explored the country, met new people, and studied at one of the most prestigious universities in the country. As a Middle Eastern Studies and Global & International Studies major, studying abroad in Egypt allowed me to practice my Arabic language skills while immersing myself in another culture. To my surprise and delight, it helped me to truly understand all that I have studied during my time at Bard.
 
I had always wanted to study abroad but was unsure of where to start. Would I be able to afford it? Would I be able to go where I wanted even if I wasn’t fluent in the language? Would living in a different country for months be too much of a culture shock? I had countless questions about the process, but luckily Trish Fleming, the study abroad advisor, was able to guide me and answer all my questions. With her help, I found The American University of Cairo, figured out how to finance my semester abroad, and selected the right courses.
 
Being in Cairo was incredible. Although there were ups and downs (like living in a city where most people spoke a language I wasn’t fluent in), I learned a tremendous amount about Egypt and about myself. Traveling alone as a woman and as a minority in Egypt made me really stick out, and I encountered many situations that tested me. However, I was able to find people there to support me and who understood my experiences.
  
Studying abroad challenges you in ways you don’t expect. You feel everything tenfold. Some days you’ll just lie in bed all day missing home, while other days you explore the city and meet people from all over the world. You’re challenged in many areas: your intelligence, your strength, your tenacity, and your assertiveness. All of these experiences push you to be a better person, even if it doesn’t feel like it at the moment. 

Studying abroad also opens many doors for you. Everything that you learned in the small town or the big city you grew up in gets flipped on its head. As you adjust to an entirely new community (and often one that speaks a different language) you learn so much about other people and how they live. Their humor, the songs they love, the foods they eat, and the other cultural idiosyncrasies that appear in conversation. The more you push yourself out of your comfort zone, the more you’ll experience and learn.
 
Studying abroad is a profound experience. It’s about seeing the blazing sunset light up the sky and suddenly crying because it’s so beautiful. It’s crowding into an Uber with your roommates and driving through the haze while listening to the sounds of the city. It’s running away from groups of kids asking for your pictures at tourist sites. It’s ducking into a small café by the market and indulging in new foods you never thought you’d try. It’s camping in the desert surrounded by strangers and staring up at the clear starry sky. It’s talking to cab drivers over the sounds of overplayed pop songs they thought you’d like. 
Being abroad shows you a lot about a different culture, and how that culture is so much like your own. Coming from a small town at the tip of Long Island, New York, I never thought I would be talking to a small coffee shop owner in the middle of Egypt. I never thought that I would meet people from the Netherlands, France, Korea, Morocco, and states all across the U.S. I never thought that I would travel to Alexandria in a cramped van with people from all over the world listening to pop songs in Arabic, nor did I think that I would ever take a cruise on the Nile River seeing all the ancient temples that I had read about as a kid. 

Being abroad opens your mind in ways you never thought possible. I learned so much about cultures in the Middle East in ways that no classroom in the U.S. could teach me. I was able to connect to people that I had always assumed were too different from me. People are all the same in many ways, I learned. We strive towards the same things and love the same kinds of people and speak a common language of humanity. We’re not so different, even if our languages, the places where we grew up, and the way our parents raised us, are. 

Being a global citizen is not as hard as I had thought. Getting to know communities and finding ways to support them is a universal language in itself. I was privileged enough to be able to participate in this experience and learn about life in ways that staying in New York would never have given me. I learned that taking a chance on myself by studying abroad meant taking a chance on others.

Would you like to learn about how study abroad works at Bard, including the Petition for Study Abroad process and timeline, scholarships, Bard Abroad programs, Bard Tuition Exchanges, and opportunities via OSUN? Contact Study Abroad Adviser Trish Fleming at [email protected].

Post Date: 03-24-2023