Welcome to the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures (NELC)

Student Studies Arabic in Yemen

Heather Sweetser, a Master’s student in Arabic, lived in Yemen from July 2009 to September 2010. When funding for the Fulbright she’d won to do research in Yemen was pulled because of security concerns, she found a job in Sana’a as a librarian that paid for her living expenses as well as for classes at the Center for Arabic Language and Eastern Studies, one of the many Arabic schools in the capital. "Opportunities for students exist throughout the Middle East, and you can make things happen when other things fall through," she said. "I was even able to find work as a journalist and had more than a dozen articles published."