Statement of Purpose Essay and the Follow-on Service Project Proposal
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Statement of Purpose
My desire to study abroad is driven by a wish to get first-hand experience of a different culture other than the American culture. The main reason is to acquire an understanding of the way of life of the Arabs, including their language, perceptions, values, practices and beliefs. At the same time, I will gain knowledge and skills in communication that will be applicable to my life-long career. By the end of the program, I expect to gain interactional and communication experience that will help in understanding the underlying elements of the Arabic Culture, including elements related to pragmatic communication. I have interacted with a few Arabs in my school, and the little experience will be helpful enhancing my relationship with fellow students at a new school setting dominated by Arab students. Although I do not clearly understand the Arabic language, I have gained experience and skills in communication that will facilitate my interaction with the Arabs and ultimately, learn the Arabic Language.
My aim is to study communication as a major subject and sociology as a minor subject in Egypt. Studying communication will enable me gain knowledge and skills needed in the work of journalism, which is my ultimate goal. Studying sociology will help me to gain interactional skills and ability to understand the behaviors of people from different cultural backgrounds in the new study environment. The course will take a period of four years. During that period, I will have gained adequate experience and understanding of the Arabic culture. I selected Egypt since it is an Arabic nation, where I will have an opportunity to learn the deep elements of the Arabic culture. At the moment, people of Egypt are appreciative of people of Western countries, unlike one of the Arabic societies such as Syria. These reasons led me to select Egypt as the most suitable country.
As mentioned earlier, my main goal in life is to purse a career in journalism. In addition to gaining communication skills and experience needed in the journalism profession, studying abroad will provide me with opportunities that gain interactional skills and experience that are not provided in the classroom. I will learn how to interact with people from different cultural settings and people with different perceptions of the world. A journalist can be tasked to collect information from any part of the world. As such, most media companies today prefer hiring individuals with international experience. The international experience that I will gain through studying abroad will enhance my reputation and ability to get employment. The experience will also be applicable in the interaction with other people other than the Arabs. In short, the scholarship will help me achieve the aforementioned set of academic and professional objectives.
One of the main distinctive activities of the program is to conduct Follow-on Service Projects. As part of the studies, I will be required to propose and engage in a Follow-on Service Project of my choice every year. The follow-on project will be vital in highlighting my educational background, skills, talents and experiences abroad. For instance, I may conduct do a field research about the elements of pragmatic communication present in the Arabic culture, and find the main distinctions in communication patterns between people in the Arabic Societies and people in the Western nations, which may affect the ability for the American interns to cope with the new environments abroad. In addition, the program requires the interns to engage in extracurricular activities or volunteer activities of own choice, which will involve services that are beneficial to the community. My aim is to engage in extracurricular activities that involve cleaning the natural environment and sensitizing people about the importance engaging in activities that prevent harm on the environment.
The main challenge that I faced when making decision to study abroad is difficulty in comprehending Arabic language. Also, I feared interacting with people from a different cultural background. Prior to making the decision, I had not closely interacted with Arabs. To counter the issue, I decided to orient myself through interacting with the few people from the Arabic countries studying in our school. As we closely interacted and appreciated each other, I managed to dispel out the fear of interacting with people from a different culture. In the process, I learned few common words in Arabic. The experience will contribute in making my orientation in the new environment abroad easy. The second challenge I faced is lack of adequate funding to support my plans. In addition to getting the scholarship grant, I realized that I might need more money to support personal expenses. My parents are immigrants from Mexico, and they have a poor economic background. In fact, I am the only one, out of four children in our nuclear family, who has attained the opportunity to access college education. Consequently, my parents are not able to provide me with any financial support, even for personal expenses. To address the issue, I have sought financial assistance from government agencies, some of which have offered to support my expenses during the internship period. Having adequate funds to support my expenses during the internship period will help to eliminate financial difficulties that may hinder smooth learning. I will be able to only concentrate on acquiring the academic and professional objectives without distraction.
Follow-on Service Project Proposal
My outreach project to support Gilman Scholarship and international education will be to investigate the communication challenges that the US students face when studying abroad. In particular, the study will focus on the challenges facing the students in understanding the aspects of pragmatic communication of the foreign cultures. Languages defer in grammatical aspects such as lexicon, syntax and phonology. In addition, they differ in the patterns of interaction and the rules of speaking, which vary from one community to another. People studying abroad usually focus on understanding the foreign languages, and ignore the patterns of interaction and the rules of speaking. As a result, they may not pass the intended message effectively to the native-speakers, irrespective of having a reasonable command in vocabulary and grammar in the local languages.
The issue may lead to a misunderstanding, which might generate conflict with native-speakers. Therefore, my focus will be to investigate the differences in the elements of pragmatic communication between the US and the Arabic culture, and whether there are adequate and effective tools and methods in classrooms in Egyptian universities to help US students gain pragmatic competence. The project will help the home university and the population of US in general to understand the pragmatic communication challenges facing US students studying abroad. The ultimate goal of the project is to highlight the importance of designing strategies that would enable US students studying abroad gain pragmatic competence so that they communicate effectively with natives in the foreign countries.
In order to understand the differences in the communication strategies of the Arabs and the Americans, data for the study will be collected on the US and the local students in Egyptian universities. The results that will be derived from the study will help the US students studying in Egypt to gain awareness in the differences in pragmatic communication strategies between the US and the Arabic cultures. Also, the results will propose strategies that will be vital in enabling the US students learn and utilize the pragmatic communication strategies of the Arabic culture. In addition, the results will be relevant to the local students in Egypt as they will also understand their pragmatic communication differences with the US students.
The project that I have selected will allow for the application of my experiences abroad. My experience in communicating with the Arab students will help in understanding their communication strategies. From the beginning of the course, I will try to make close interactions with the Arabic students and invest time in understanding the Arabic language. In all settings, I will always be ready to learn new things regarding their communication. For instance, I will be curious to learn the words they use when making requests and making apologies, and then translate them into English language. I will also be curious to understand the communication strategies of the Arab students as they speak in English. I will then investigate the differences between the Arab and American students in making requests and apologies. I will also observe the extent to which the books and other materials provided or available to the foreign students contain information that help them to learn pragmatics. In settings with both the Arab and the American students, I will always be eager to spot cases of misunderstanding resulting from the differences in communication strategies. My experience in communication and interaction will help in soliciting any other information that will be relevant for the study. In short, I will be able to integrate my overall experience abroad in the project.
To promote Gilman Scholarship and international education, I will corroborate with communication studies department in the local university. I will seek books and other materials on communication strategies and other necessary materials for my project from the communication studies department. The results of the study will be relevant to all students going to study abroad in the future, whether they will go under the scholarship program or not. The department of communication studies will also help in designing and implementing strategies that will be recommended in the study. Among the possible recommendations will be to provide the students going to study in the Arabic states with materials that will enable them learn communication strategies of the Arabic societies and gain pragmatic competence. I have already made contacts with the communication studies department and they have assured me of support as long as I conduct a comprehensive research on the issue. After completing my project, I will submit a summary of the final report of my experience when studying abroad and the impact of the project.
