"Everyday at Apple I work with customers who speak Arabic. It has been so helpful to learn the language at school and then practice at it with my new friends at work! Many Arab customers come from the gulf region and are excited to talk about their culture with me. The Arabic course at UCI has encouraged me to approach the differences around me and has been the catalyst for my interest in studying abroad this fall in Amman, Jordan!"

When my finance’s dad picked up the phone and greeted me with “As-salamu alaykum,” I was quite happily surprised. Anticipating as I was the difficulty of conversing across the language barrier of English-to-Korean, I was really happy to discover this possibility of talking in Arabic. As I found out later, my finance’s dad had traveled to Iraq with the Korean military not too long ago, and was able to speak with me that way. Very cool!

History & Religious Studies
Senior – 5th Year

I am currently taking Arabic 2C with Professor Raheela Maniar. I do not have many opportunities to practice my verbal skills and I have a lack of confidence in conversing in Arabic with native speakers. I recently attended a Graduate School orientation and had the opportunity to meet a professor that I greatly admire who is from Egypt. I decided to have courage and began to speak with her in Arabic. Much to my surprise and delight, I stopped overthinking, went into “automatic pilot,” and managed have a brief and successful conversation with her in Arabic. This was my “Arabic Moment,” and it was terrific!