My name is Crystin and I’m a senior at Loyola. I’m a dual major in Journalism and Political Science. I’m also in my third semester of Arabic with Professor Sawsan. I chose to learn Arabic for a number of reasons, but they are hard to express. I eventually want to report in the Middle East and I thought it would mean volumes if I could actually learn cultural aspects about the different countries and how to hold a basic conversation with native speakers.
In the summers I go back and work at a cheese factory in my home state of Wisconsin. I’ve worked there for five years now with my sisters and my mom. We make and package string cheese for our company as well as others. We make orders with Spanish on the label, but this summer we recently started packaging cheese for a new company in Saudi Arabia. The labels on the package are partially in English and in Arabic. I was so excited when we started this order because I could read a few of the words and phrases on the label and what I didn’t know, I could figure out based on the context. It was a refresher for me to see Arabic implemented in my home lifestyle and not just at school. My coworkers ask me all the time why I chose to study Arabic at Loyola and I never quite have an answer for them except that I was just drawn to it. My face lit up when I could actually show them some of the words I had learned at school and say some phrases and teach them about the language that infatuates me so. It connected my home life with my school life in a way I didn’t expect the language could.
