Student Exchange Builds Knowledge Between U.S., Pakistan

By Jeff Baron
Staff Writer

Washington - Sikandar Hayat Sajid was halfway around the world from his home in Charsadda, Pakistan, and newly arrived at a university in the southern U.S. state of Tennessee, when one of his new American friends asked him where he had gone for the weekend.

Nowhere, he confessed. "I told him that I was in the dorm and feeling pretty bored. He told me, 'Oh, man, why didn't you tell me?'"

Hayat didn't have a problem with being bored again.

For the next weekend, the friend got together a group - including Hayat - for river rafting. "Believe me, I was having no idea what rafting is," said Hayat, who also did not know how to swim. On the river, on campus and as a guest at friends' homes, Hayat spent a semester immersing himself in America while continuing his engineering studies as part of a new U.S. exchange program for college students from Pakistan.

The first group of 50 students has now returned to Pakistan, while 50 others are spending the spring 2011 semester at college campuses throughout the United States. Their experiences are part of the State Department's Global Undergraduate Exchange Program-Pakistan, known as Global UGRAD-Pakistan, which launched in fall 2010. The State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs manages the Global UGRAD program, which provides scholarships to students from an array of countries around the world for a semester at two- and four-year U.S. colleges and universities.

In addition to taking coursework in their fields, the Pakistani exchange students complete a course in U.S. studies, participate in community service and cultural activities, and improve their English as needed. The Pakistani students who recently finished the program said they also made friends and changed perceptions - Americans' perceptions of Pakistan and its people, and their own perceptions of the United States.

They also had surprises. Afza Asif, who studies business at Fatima Jinnah Women's University in Rawalpindi, said she knew that the U.S. school she would attend for the semester - Chadron State College in Nebraska - was coeducational, but she didn't understand how different that might be. "The person living next door [in] my dorm was a guy, and I was uncomfortable in the beginning," she said. "But then, the people in the United States have a very deep understanding of genders, and how to behave like there is not a big difference between a girl and a guy there. ... So it didn't bother me anymore."

And Rubab Zahra found that she could enjoy even a painful experience at St. Cloud State University in the frigid midwestern state of Minnesota: ice skating. "We don't have ice, so ice skating - never mind," she said, laughing. "I fell eight times when I went ice skating, so that was my first and last lesson. So I didn't go for ice skating again. But that was an awesome experience."

Zahra said any apprehension she had about being so far from home at age 19 disappeared quickly. "I was homesick, of course I was, the starting two weeks or so, but after that, truly speaking, there was so much fun and there were so many things to do [in addition to] my studies, and I couldn't actually find time to be homesick or to be confused or to be frightened," she said.

The Pakistanis explored the mysteries of American football and baseball, and Hayat even played in a softball game between students in the American Society of Civil Engineers - his team - and those in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Hayat said the high point of his semester at Tennessee Tech University was his service as the first international student to be elected a senator in the student government. He said that gave him an insight into U.S. government generally, while a course taught him U.S. history. His social life, he said, taught him about American culture, and it took him far off campus, to the homes of classmates who invited him along to stay with their families and see more of the country.

The students said they found more similarities than they expected between life in Pakistan and life in the United States. They said the U.S. style of teaching is more informal but just as demanding, with a similar curriculum. Zahra, who studies biochemistry, said she was thrilled with the facilities at St. Cloud State: "We don't have such [advanced] labs there in my university," she said.

"I found some nice friends over there, and Americans are very keen to hear about Pakistan," Hayat said, who added that the image Americans have from the media is mostly of a Pakistan wracked by violence.

The students said they encountered only friendly curiosity and helpfulness over their Muslim faith no matter where they were in the United States. During Ramadan, Hayat kept food in his dorm room so that he could eat before dawn, and a custodian noticed it and arranged for him to have a refrigerator in the room. The cafeteria "changed the whole menu for us" to provide more vegetarian and fish meals, he added.

"I didn't feel anything uncomfortable regarding the religion, to be very honest," Hayat said. "There was a mosque beside our dorm on the campus, and we went regularly to offer the taraweeh prayers. ... My parents, they were surprised, [saying], 'You are in the United States and you are going for taraweeh?' I told them that, yes; it's the religious freedom over here."

"I really had to come out of my comfort zone," said Asif, who was the only Pakistani student at Chadron State. "And when I started to talking to people about my culture ... they were really very interested in my culture, in my religion, in Pakistan and especially in the political controversy that surrounds the region."

The students said they are using Facebook, Skype and text messages to keep in close touch with their American friends, and they talked of trying to get together again - possibly in Pakistan.

ENDS

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