Week 2 of my Study Abroad Trip in Haifa, Israel

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great week. I’d like to start off this week’s blog post by giving an update to the classes that I will be taking this semester. Instead of Arab-Israeli Conflict, I will now be taking a colloquial Arabic class for 4 credits. This change allows me to make the most of my time here and learn as much Arabic as possible. So now I am taking a Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) class for 6 credits, Colloquial Arabic for 4 credits, my internship for 3 credits and Terrorism and Responses for 3 credits. Some of you are probably wondering what the difference between MSA and Colloquial Arabic is? MSA is the Arabic used in news broadcasts, legal documents, official speeches, books, newspapers, and academia. Whereas colloquial Arabic is the language used in daily conversation and has 22 different dialects used across the Middle East. It has been interesting for me learning the local colloquial dialect as it is very different than the MSA that I am accustomed to. One of my favorite things about the University of Haifa is that I can take all the linguistic skills I learn and apply them right outside of the classroom at my internship or the local Arab markets. Additionally, I can practice my Arabic at home because my roommate speaks the language as well. Most of the signs in Israel are in Hebrew and have the Arabic translation under them. One thing that I noticed though is that some of the signs tend to have the incorrect Arabic translation but the majority of them are accurate. During my last semester at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) I was able to participate in the Far West Conference for Model United Nations in San Francisco. Model United Nations is a club sponsored by the United Nations and facilitated by different Universities around the world. During club meetings, students work together to represent countries from around the world. At the end of the semester, the United Nations hosts a conference where all of the Model UN clubs compete in a formal setting in a mock United Nations Assembly. Upon my arrival in Haifa, I was pleased to find out that the University of Haifa has a Model UN club and I have an interview this upcoming Thursday for the club. For the interview, I have to prepare a 3-minute speech on an international topic. I plan on discussing the ongoing refugee crisis in Yemen and the urgent need for humanitarian assistance in the country. I ended off my week by going to the beach with a group of friends from the international school. I would like to thank everyone for reading this week and look forward to updating you about my upcoming week! Please feel free to subscribe to my blog to get an email notification every time I post.