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November 29, 2007
Exchange students enjoy Fall Semester at Greenville Tech

(GREENVILLE, SC) – In just a few short months, ten exchange students who came to Greenville Technical College from the Near East and South Asia overcame homesickness and culture shock, became used to the campus and the community, and began preparing for homesickness of a different kind when they return to their own countries.

Hamad Al-meer graduated from high school in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The experience at Greenville Tech, he said, made him more independent and responsible, and changed his view of the world.

	Left to right (Front row): Rana Bou-Daher of Lebanon, Haajar Boutafi of Morocco, Saira Mujtaba of India, Zara Khan of Pakistan, and Madihah Ali of Yemen. (Back row): Hamad Almeer of Bahrain, Nicolas Khattar of Lebanon, Khaled Trabelsi of Tunisia, Suhail Khan of India, and Golam Hasan of Bangladesh.

For Khaled Trabelsi of Tunisia, who speaks Arabic, French, German, Italian and English, experiencing the American economic system is something he’ll take away from his time as an exchange student. In terms of souvenirs, however, he says the friends he has made among the group, who all lived in close proximity in the Greenville Tech Foundation Student Housing apartments, will be his favorite memory. He plans to keep in touch with them by e-mail.

Suhail Khan, a native of the state of Jammu and Kashmir in India and a senior at the University of Kashmir, said a Clemson hat will be a tangible reminder of his time in Upstate South Carolina. He also takes away a different world outlook. “The outlook has broadened for sure,” he said. “After this program, I won’t just think in terms of my country. I will think internationally.”

Hamad, Khaled, and Suhail were joined by Nicolas Khattar, a pre-med student from Lebanon, Rana Bou-Daher, a computer and communication student from Lebanon, Saira Mujtaba of India, Zara Khan from Pakistan, Madihah Ali of Yemen, Haajar Boutafi of Morocco, and Golam Hasan of Bangladesh. These students are ten of one hundred and fifty students at 16 different campuses across the U.S. participating in the Near East and South Asia Undergraduate Program, a program of the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and administered by Georgetown University, Center of Intercultural Education and Development.

This experience has benefited the exchange students and those they met at Greenville Tech and in the community. The students, who arrived on campus for an orientation program in August, will depart after exams in December. Arrangements were made for Upstate families and Greenville Tech faculty to serve as weekend activity hosts for a month. Various members of the community, the program mentor, and the director of the international education department at Greenville Tech have hosted other student activities.

The program included a wide range of activities, which the students balanced with a course load of University Transfer Honors classes. For some, finding time for both was difficult. “In the beginning of the program, I found it difficult to strike a balance between the program’s activities and classes,” Suhail said.

Activities included visiting local museums, attending plays downtown and at Furman University, worshipping with local churches and religious organizations, going to a baseball game, attending Furman’s homecoming football game, hiking in Table Rock, traveling to Highlands, N.C. and Atlanta, GA, and participating in community service activities with Rotaract and Hands on Greenville.

For some, the American class schedule was more rigid than what they were accustomed to. “It’s more flexible back home,” Zara said, explaining that students in Pakistan may show up for class 15 to 20 minutes after it starts without penalty. “Getting to class on time was difficult for me.”

Others found the work load to be difficult. “The homework was a big problem for me,” Saira of India said. At home, she is a student at Jamia Millia Islamia University pursuing a degree in English and literature.

Haajar, whose father is an English teacher, had seen “Gone with the Wind” at home, and based some of her impressions of the American South on that movie. Seeing the South in person was different. She and others in the group described the area as calm, beautiful, and green.