Upper Beginner Persian, Dushanbe, Tajikistan, 2010

2nd year Islamic Studies Masters Student at Washington University in Saint Louis

Teacher’s recommendation

My studies are focused on Sufism, the mystical forms of Islam, for which Persian and Turkish are especially as much of the rich history of Sufism happened in their geographic regions.

My goal is to become a professor of religious studies and or a government employee of some stripe. My hope is that Iran and America will work to closen their level of trust in my lifetime, in which case I hope to be of some aid with the help of Persian and a career in Islam.

As I am still currently an Intermediate Persian speaker, I mostly use the language in my coursework as I try to deepen my knowledge of the language.

My goal is to facilitate the exchange of information and mutual understanding between Iran and America, for which constant translation and communication will be necessary.

Yes, I previously could not foresee how I would be able to use Persian in my work, but having been closer to the language for a time I now feel that I have the ability to learn the language and interact with the Persianate world on a closer basis.

My favorite part of studying in Tajikistan was working with the wonderful Iranian language teachers and the amazing students in the CLS Program. The group was impressive in many ways and I greatly enjoyed working closely with them.

To be completely honest, everything I now know about Tajikistan I learned on the program. As is true with most people who I tell I studied there, I had never heard of Tajikistan before the CLS application.

We had been warned many times over of the horrible stomach illness that could be acquired through the legendary Dushanbe drinking water. We would soon learn that it was not only drinking water, but food, snacks, and any other number of edible Tajiki treats, but on our first day having arrived in the country one of our group members decided that he had a cure. We landed in Dushanbe, were dropped off at our apartments for the summer, and this boy proceeded to down three glasses of the legendary Dushanbe tap water! We were dumbfounded. We were also dumbfounded when he was one of the last of our group to fall to the almost daily stomach illness. I won't say he was immune, or that this was necessarily a cause-effect relationship, but he did gain a certain status among the group.

This means “I miss you” but the literal translation is something along the lines of “my heart became tight for you”

I grew up in Southeastern North Carolina where my parents were both Presbyterian ministers in local Presbyterian churches. I wanted so badly to travel that on the way to move into my freshman dorm the first day of freshman year I couldn’t believe that we would actually arrive at this fanciful place where I could study the world and even go abroad. I graduated from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 2009 with Highest Honors from International Studies with a focus in Chinese and Economics. I began my Masters degree in Islamic Studies the following fall at Washington University in Saint Louis. Immediately following the CLS Program in Dushanbe, Tajikistan in 2010 I moved to Istanbul, Turkey for the fall to learn Turkish and will be in Paris, France in the Spring of 2011 with an exchange program studying Sufi diasporic groups in the city.