Alan Abroad: NSLI-Y Tajikistan Summer 2019

I first heard about NSLI-Y in an email sent out during my freshman year. Over the summer I looked it up and signed up for a notification when the application was released. I got an email in August then ignored it until September and October when I wrote my essays. Essays The application included numerous short prompts plus a longer "letter to your host family." I wrote initial drafts, then ignored them for much longer than I should have. I had a couple of people give me feedback in the last few days before the deadline, including a student who was currently on a state department exchange program and my boss. The shorter prompts focused on language choice, which I struggled with a bit due to the very short word count, but it forced me to think about what was important to emphasize. Other Parts of the Application The application included numerous demographic questions, a brief area to describe medical conditions, and questions of language ability and experience. Even t...

Hi all, Over the summer I will be studying abroad at Tajikistan on a state department scholarship program called NSLI-Y. I hope to keep this blog updated when I can, but since my internet connection will be sporadic, I make no guarantees. That said, I plan on writing down what I am doing as well as my thought and reflections, so hopefully, I will be able to publish those entries once I return to internet connection. Now to answer a couple of questions: Where is Tajikistan? Tajikistan is a former Soviet state located in Central Asia. It is just north of Afganistan and west of China. I will be staying in the capital Dushanbe. What will you be doing there? My time in Tajikistan will focus primarily on learning the language. In Tajikistan, they speak Tajik, which is a version of Persian. It is very similar to Farsi which is spoken in Iran and Dari which is spoken in Afganistan. Interestingly Tajik uses the Cyrillic script, a holdover from its Soviet days. I will be spendi...