Best Middle East Studies programs?

[Anonymous]

With eye towards government work. Good Arabic skills, high stats, open to any ideas.

[Anonymous]

Wouldn't go near any degree program or career right now that might involve Middle East travel.

[Anonymous]

Might be an unpopular suggestion, but sequestered away from the middle east and its spillover issues is not the route to getting a good career in the region. I'd suggest a top student interested in this field to go to the UK and study at Oxford(!!!) or Cambridge. You will get much further.

If staying in the US, Georgetown is where it's at. Yale and Berkeley are also spectacular.

[Anonymous]

Put Michigan on the list, because we have a large local population of Arabic speakers in the Detroit Metro Area. Might even be a possibility to find local US government work for internships.

https://lsa.umich.edu/middleeast

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Middle_Eastern_people_in_Metro_Detroit

https://arabamericanmuseum.org/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With eye towards government work. Good Arabic skills, high stats, open to any ideas.

Wellesley? They have good government placement. I think your best bet is a LAC

[Anonymous]

IU Arabic dept and actually languages in general can't be best.

[Anonymous]

Anyone with actual experience in this field knows Berkeley and Georgetown and a few ivies (Yale and Harvard) are the answers.

[Anonymous]

There's a difference between the academic reputation of PhDs and how well they place into professorships vs the government reputation and how well undergrads place into government work. Don't trust any tecomm from someone who isn explicitly aware of this difference, as you'll likely get recommendations based on the former rather than the latter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's a difference between the academic reputation of PhDs and how well they place into professorships vs the government reputation and how well undergrads place into government work. Don't trust any tecomm from someone who isn explicitly aware of this difference, as you'll likely get recommendations based on the former rather than the latter.

*hint to the audience, it's the same group of people*

[Anonymous]

Georgetown for sure and they even have a scholarship for incoming undergraduates who come in with a background in Arabic studies

[Anonymous]

Oxford university
SOAS in London

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Georgetown for sure and they even have a scholarship for incoming undergraduates who come in with a background in Arabic studies

I think you have to qualify for FA for this.

[Anonymous]

Davidson

[Anonymous]

nobody in the US knows SOAS (sadly)

[Anonymous]

Trinity College Dublin has a combo program, Middle Eastern and European Languages and Cultures, where you choose one ME language and one European language, then specialize in those plus the respective cultures (history, politics, art etc) of the regions where those languages are spoken. Third year is spent in one or both regions, though there was not a ton of choice in what they considered "Middle East".

My child was considering it for Arabic/French but ended up going elsewhere so I can't speak to what the program's like. Did go over to visit and professors were very engaged and happy to meet, discuss career paths etc.