University of Dayton

Zac Sideras is a senior international studies and history major at the University of Dayton. A Kettering, Ohio, native, he took his first Arabic class during his senior year of high school through UD. Following his first year on campus, Sideras traveled to Morocco for the summer where he continued studying the language intensively at Al-Akhawayn University. His interest in the political and historical dynamics of the Middle East led him on a 2009 spring semester trip to Birzeit University in the West Bank of the Palestinian territories.

Recently, the Institute for International Education awarded him a David L. Boren Scholarship for an upcoming study trip to the American University in Cairo during the 2009 fall semester. He will apply the scholarship, which is for language and culture study in regions deemed critical to U.S. national security, to study Arabic, history and political science. Read More

The Story - Studying abroad is extremely beneficial for any major because it really gives you an opportunity to look at the world in a different way.

I'm Zac Sideras, a senior at the University of Dayton, double majoring in history and international studies.

To better understand what we're dealing with in the world as far as international issues, we have to understand the cultures better. One of the most beneficial parts of my education is having the opportunity to study in Morocco and the West Bank and now (embarking on) the upcoming trip to Egypt. You can read and you can study and learn all the theory, but when you get there, a lot of it's just turned completely upside down. That's a really great experience to have, especially for me when I go into graduate study, to understand what are the facts on the ground? What is really going on? You reach a certain point in your education where you just have to go. And this was my trip to go and experience and to see and to witness. And it was a really eye-opening experience.

Studying abroad in the Middle East has really given me the opportunity to experience the differences between cultures, and that's something I find very interesting — how culture formed society and how institutions in society are really a product of the culture. And being in the West Bank and going to Egypt in the fall will give me a chance to look at how Arab cultures really shape their political institutions, shape their social institutions and their economic foundations.

The Boren Scholarship is tuition for either a semester or a year to study abroad in a country that has a language that is a critical need to the United States. So I chose, when I started college, to study Arabic. And Arabic is a language that the government is pushing heavily for students to study.

For me, being a Boren Scholar is really important because it recognizes a lot of the efforts that I've already put into my undergraduate education, studying Arabic, spending time abroad. And secondly, it really recognizes the work that UD has done for me, but also for the student body, in making education here an international experience.

While I'm the first Boren Scholar at UD, I hope I'm the first of many. I think that's a true testament to the value that we place here on international education.

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