Anyone looking for a speaker to come
and teach students how to get the most out of their education should think
about getting Eman to give a speech. His advice here, and in Part I and Part II
of his interview, does not simply apply to international students. Parents
should think about his advice to them too. I have heard many speeches from
administrators and ‘educated professionals’ on the topics covered here but I
would place Eman’s words alongside those who have lived, recently and deeply,
inside the world in which a love of education and learning flows through the
blood.
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My father and his elder brother came to
the US as students and, though they had it rough, thrived, loved and succeeded
in America. I think they fell in love with American prosperity along with the
idea of being Frontiersmen. They also describe a culture in which people were
amazingly welcoming to people from the East (this was the 70’s), unlike the
xenophobic turn that some parts of the US have sadly taken over the last
decade. Some of my dad’s favorite stories, and best friends, are from his time
in America.
My parents wanted all of my siblings to
study in the US and, provided we worked hard enough to get admission (which
admission in a school like KGS helps with greatly) and some kind of package to
help us get there, we were told that we could go. It’s worth it, again, to mention
that there are only a handful of Pakistani universities that operate at a high
standard (Medicine, business and engineering, but obviously no liberal arts).
Many people in the US know very little
about Pakistan. Most of the stories they do hear contain bad news.
What are
some things you think people should know that they probably don’t and should?
The first thing that people should know
(and hopefully already do) is that truly a great majority of what you have
watched, read, heard or seen analyzed about Pakistan on your television screens
and in your newspapers is a dishonest perspective, frequently propagated with
malicious intent to do a combination of sell newspapers and justify military
conflict.
Most Pakistanis sincerely do not spend
too much time thinking about Americans or the West, or plotting the destruction
of any of the aforementioned. The great majority of Pakistanis are pretty busy
struggling to make a living. Just like Americans living here who are focused on
trying to get by, this stereotype about Pakistanis as being angry and vengeful,
fanatical, all of this –it constitutes, at best, a portion of a single percent
of the entire population, albeit one that is noisy at times and which the
foreign media loves to portray.
 |
| Malala receiving International Children's Peace Prize, Sept. 2013 |
Regarding the War on Terror, most
Pakistanis would also love it if there weren’t American drone strikes, if the US
either packed up and left Afghanistan, or then helped develop Afghanistan
equitably with a long-term vision for prosperity (i.e. using a combo of
diplomacy, politics and international business, no M-16’s). Those are the
important things these days that need to be clarified. I think you have a very
small minority in both countries, the US and Pakistan, that wants conflict,
that benefits from this conflict, and has managed to pull two huge countries
into this mangled situation with one another; one that isn’t really reflective
of the views or desires of the people living in either of these two countries.
Most people always want peace and we need to make sure that the moderate
majorities in either countries aren’t cowed into submission by war-mongers.
Are you
optimistic about the future of Pakistan? Why or why not?
Yes, I think I am. There’s a lot of
negative stuff floating around, there’s a whole sub-genre of journalism
dedicated to this stuff, about Pakistan’s disintegration, which, though the
Federation is pretty strained at this point, extremely unlikely. Also, despite
some incredible losses over the last few years, where even the most stubborn
economic capital has all but flown away, Pakistan has something very few
countries do: It has, in it’s 66-year history, never experienced an Economic
recession. That’s a pretty remarkable statistic. And, in terms of its
resources, location, people, and even the culture, the country has got some
serious strengths. Things are the worst they have ever been, but Pakistan is
the 28th largest economy globally. Key here is that, unlike many of our modern
anomalies, places like Dubai that have artificially propped themselves up on
stuff like tourism, financial and housing bubbles, Pakistan is producing stuff
(not high quality stuff, unfortunately). But, for instance, Pakistan is capable
of guaranteeing its own food security and, quite, possibly energy security.
Given the way our world is evolving, and the instability the global economy has
witnessed, that kind of potential for self-reliance in the most basic resources
is a valuable trait. Remember, this is a country of 190 million (two thirds the
size of the population of the US). That’s a lot of people who aren’t going
anywhere anytime soon. Pakistan just needs to get its act together, which I’m
not suggesting is easy, but it can certainly happen.
 |
| The future of Pakistan, Eman included |
It
was challenging at times. But in my experience if you embrace any experience as
if you have no other choice, which is how I looked at my college experience,
you find a way to do well. The more you live on that boundary of “Should I be
here?”…I don’t consider that a healthy approach to any new experience.
You.Must.Immerse.Yourself. It doesn’t matter what you’re going for, what
environment you’re faced with. You have to jump with both feet in and keep
moving forward. You’re at your university, you have moved in. Now the only way
out is through that graduation four years later. Rather than wondering if you
should be here, get busy thinking about the kind of person you would like to be
by the time you graduated four years later?
I
ask students reading this, especially First and Second-years, to ask this of
themselves: Who do you want to be when you leave your university? That could be
anything…it could be character-building or a certain set of skills like public
speaking that you hope to master. Spend your time in college pursuing those
dreams. This is four years spent best taking risks, exploring your interests,
pursuing the things you wish you could do. Because it’s possible that if you
tried you might be better than most people around you. But you have got to try.
I have watched people through my four years frequently get good at something
they weren’t good at before they got here. This is the kind of college
experience I would recommend. Block out the fears of falling behind and just
invest in yourself. As I tried to argue previously, this should be seen as a
win-win. Differentiating yourself doesn’t hurt your chances of finding
employment either. You have nothing to lose by getting out of your shell in
college.
I
did face some racism, directly. And that is okay, manageable. If someone is
racist, you deal with it directly. And then you can move on. The thing that can
be more stressful is the stuff that’s a little less direct. The random comments
you might hear walking by a group of people, which might be about people from your
part of the world, or your spiritual faith. That’s stressful because those are
the situations which aren’t significant enough to face down. The idea that I
pull over a bunch of people and tell them they should try to sound less like
buffoons…who wants to be that guy?! But it’s either that or you pretend you
didn’t hear it. That’s an annoying position to be in.
Here
I can give another piece of advice about what has helped me. Obviously there
are many approaches but I think the reason I was able to adjust well and not be
affected by a lot of this stuff is that I, early on, built a great group of
friends, a mixed bag in terms of race, religion and background (foreign and
US). I recommend you find yourself such a mixed bag yourself. I have grown as
much through my deep friendships with people different from me, as from any
other activity.
But
the point I wanted to make is this: if I encountered something that was
negative, I didn’t feel isolated because I had a “support-system”, a social
group, whom I could share these things with and we could discuss these, joke
about them, together. This is important, because I have also seen people who
experience prejudice, who generalize about Americans from that negative
experience, and hence isolate themselves based on that. If you can make the
effort to find a group of friends early on, it will guide you through most of
the challenges you can experience in your four-year college. Where to find such
people? Your first-year dorm is an ideal place. Get out there, meet people.
Realize you’re all in the same boat. Your roommate might be an American, but
he’s never been to college before either. You guys can and should bond over new
experiences together.
Did
you have mentors in school? Who were they?
If
I ever, ever attended a course with a professor who captured my imagination, I
would always send an e-mail saying hello and ask to come by her/his office. And
I have never been turned down. You won’t be turned down either! Too many people
are intimidated by this. Don’t be. Obviously, if you’re not someone who is
studying what needs to be studied in the course, don’t go. But if you are
keeping up with the reading, please do go. If you are inspired by reading on a
particular topic, share it. Confused by something? Ask a question. You are at
your college to make the most of your education, and you can’t do that if you
build a wall between yourself and the people teaching you. Get this wall down,
and your education will come to life.
(So I have been mentored by far too many
people to make a list...but the general advice I can offer is that if you
simply ask people for advice, they will give you some. Do ask and engage the
people around you...
You
have talked to me about how in some ways your undergraduate activities in part
consisted of educating others about the world you come from. Can you describe
this in any detail?
There
is one helpful point I can make here. And that is on the value of patience as a
foreigner. I have met people, at times, who, at the start of our
friendship/relationship, have ideas quite different from the ones I would hope
they would have about where I come from, about global politics (in my case it
might have been some questionable views of the Middle-East and why things seem
challenging there).
My
advice is that when you are faced with this, and you will be, don’t get
frustrated, don’t shut off, never judge too soon. I encourage anyone reading
this in a similar situation to treat this as an opportunity. Chances are, their
views were formed in the absence of actually meeting someone from your part of
the world. So, prove the media is nothing but politicians trying their hand at
fiction. You have that opportunity with every person you meet. In my
experience, if one can be patient, in time, the views of people around you will
continue to evolve, simply because they realize what they thought to be true
doesn’t add up under closer scrutiny.
Any
student coming to the US should come with the assumption that most Americans
you will meet are big-hearted and open-minded people. If that's your baseline
assumption, you will be certain to find plenty of such people.
I
think for a lot of local US students, I was the first Pakistani (and possibly
Muslim) who they had been real friends with, not just acquaintances. And those
experiences, when you realize how similar we all are, the things we have in
common as human beings, are some of the most beautiful experiences I have had.
You
always have that one moment when, though you might have been “friends” for a
brief period of time, there is still some level of formality given how
different you are from each other. That moment when you can get passed that and
really just know someone as [insert any name here]. I love those moments and
feel lucky to have had such experiences at my college.
What
things would you advise parents to think about?
I
would suggest more people think about whether it is more of a priority to raise
successful children or fulfilled children –two things that overlap at times
(which is great when they do), but sometimes don’t. There are a lot of parents
trying to micro-manage their children’s lives to ensure that they are
“successful”, and this may reduce your child’s likelihood of living a
fulfilling life. A deeply fulfilling life will, in part, come from your child’s
personal development, and that will come from giving your child the space to
make some decisions based on what he or she is most passionate about. Let them
make some mistakes. Obviously, I am not equating being dysfunctional and
unsuccessful with somehow magically being fulfilled. A good parent could, I
imagine (given my vast experience in parenting), help their child balance
between those needs for fulfillment with conventional “success”. But the idea
of developing people who are capable of living fulfilling lives seems almost
absent from everyone’s dictionary. As someone who takes pride in pursuing
things, first and foremost, that are fulfilling, I would say more people at
competitive universities would benefit from relaxing and trying the same.
If
you had to give some advice to students coming to the US from your country, or
really from anywhere, what things would you emphasize they should do to prepare
for adjustment?
This
may be one of the cheesier things I suggest, but if you are coming to the US with
little previous awareness of American culture, it wouldn’t hurt to follow a
popular television show that many of your peers would be watching. This, if
nothing else, will offer you a bridge to help relate to other people and find
an activity to pursue together. Consider Breaking Bad. People seem obsessed
with it these days.
Breaking Bad
I
know someone who came with limited cultural preparation to my university and
spent a lot of his spare time watching iconic American films. Again, it may
sound cheesy, but it seemed to work in my friend’s case. He seemed to grow in
his confidence because he was able to see what had influenced college students
to act the way they did. It allowed him to feel less like a spectator and more
like a participant in the college experience.
When
you get here, be emotionally, psychologically, spiritually prepared to get
beyond your own ethno-linguistic group. You shouldn’t do this because it will
feel good, it certainly won’t feel good, it may even feel uncomfortable, but it
will be good for you.
Lastly,
and most importantly, just learn to enjoy being uncomfortable. Learn to
associate joy with discomfort. You will, and should, be uncomfortable for the
next four years. Just accept that this is a good thing, and that even your less
pleasant experiences can only benefit you in some manner in the future. That
has been my experience.
The
quicker you can stop avoiding discomfort, the quicker your internal
conversation can move you to a specific type of discomfort that you choose for
yourself, something specific you might be interested in learning. Normally, you
might have avoided such an activity but you can use the fact that you are
perpetually uncomfortable in your new foreign culture to pursue other
uncomfortable tasks or goals you might previously have shied away from in your
original, comfortable, home environment. So you have a fantastic opportunity in
front of you. It already feels like you’re standing in a puddle, you might as
well stick a hand in and see what you find.
Eman
will be pursuing an advanced degree in the future. As I write, he is also
being considered for some top scholarships that would permit him to bring his knowledge
and passion to all those who are lucky enough to spend time with him. I wish him the best of luck, but what I really hope is that anyone thinking about what kind of student would not contribute to a program would take the time to listen to his many words of wisdom.
His
ability to cut through the platitudes and clichés so common in those who skate
on the surface of sometimes sensitive issues means he knows that thinking deeply
and writing honestly changes lives—his own and ours too.
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