Post-Soliya Reflection

Overview: My Soliya Experience

The Soliya Connect Program ran over five weeks, from March 30th to May 1st. I was placed in an online group of around ten college students from the United States, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa. We met once a week for two hours on Zoom. I attended three of the five sessions, missing one because of family travel and another because of a midterm exam that fell at the same time.

My overall experience was positive and interesting. The group was warm, respectful, and genuinely engaged. Nobody judged anyone else, and there was a real openness to different ideas. That was something I had hoped for going in, but I was still happy to see how naturally it happened from the very first session.

The Group: Who was in the room

My group was mostly students from the United States,Asia and the MENA region, including Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, and Pakistan. This meant the dynamic was more balanced than I had expected. Instead of being one of few Arab voices in a mostly Western room, the regional mix was fairly even. That actually brought up something I had never thought about before: the similarities and differences within the MENA region itself.

One moment that stood out was when we compared food across North African cultures. The overlaps between Egyptian, Moroccan, Tunisian, and Libyan cuisine were genuinely surprising to me. It was a small thing, but it made the idea of shared culture feel real and tangible rather than just theoretical.

Another unexpected moment came when we talked about punctuality. I had always half-jokingly thought of being late as an Egyptian habit, something almost embarrassing. But it turned out to be a shared trait across most of the MENA students in the group. The laughter that came from that realization was one of the warmest moments of the whole program. It is one thing to read that cultures overlap in unexpected ways, and another to actually experience it live with people from different countries.

What we discussed: Session highlights

On Questions Themselves

The conversation that surprised me most was not about identity or politics. It was about questions. In the second session, we were asked to reflect on what makes a question a good one, and whether we tend to ask more or answer more in our daily lives. I had never thought about this before.

It made me realize that asking a question is not just a way to get information. The way you ask, and what you choose to ask about, shapes the whole direction of a conversation. I left that session thinking differently about something I do every day without paying attention to it. That felt like a real takeaway.

On Identity, Culture, and What We Love About Where We Come From

One of the most meaningful exercises we did was sharing one thing we like about our culture, one thing we dislike, and one thing we find interesting. This was more personal than I expected. I had to pause and actually think about what I genuinely love about being Egyptian, not in a general way, but in a specific, honest way.

That exercise made me more appreciative of things I usually take for granted: the warmth in how people interact, the generosity of Egyptian hospitality, the humor built into everyday language. Saying these things out loud, while others did the same for their own cultures, gave them a weight they did not have before.

On Academic Pressure

The discussion about academic pressure was one of the most relatable conversations of the program. I expected this topic to highlight differences between our educational systems, but it mostly showed how much we have in common. Students from completely different countries arrived at the same questions: Are grades a real measure of ability? Do we study for ourselves or for others? Is the pressure we feel something we can actually change, or is it built into the system?

We did not reach any conclusions, but that was not really the point. The fact that people living thousands of miles apart were asking the same questions made me feel less alone in something I had always thought of as a personal struggle.

Challenges and skills developed

I came into Soliya feeling somewhat comfortable but not fully at ease. I shared my opinions when I felt ready rather than jumping into every conversation. In my pre-Soliya reflection I had written about wanting to see how I handle moments where my background becomes the subject of discussion rather than just the starting point. That did happen at times, and I was more aware of my identity as an Egyptian Muslim Arab than I usually am in daily life. Not in an anxious way, but in a more conscious one.

The main skill I developed was listening more intentionally. There is a difference between hearing something interesting and actually sitting with a perspective that comes from a very different life experience. Soliya gave me repeated practice at the second kind, especially when American students talked about family expectations or social norms that overlapped with mine in some ways and were completely different in others.

There were some minor technical issues on Zoom, but nothing that disrupted the sessions in a serious way. If anything, the format helped create a kind of equality that a physical room might not have. Everyone was just a face on a screen, which removed a lot of the usual social dynamics.

Tahrir field trip

The Tuesday in Tahrir field trip was one of my favorite parts of the course. We went in a group of five, three AUC students and two foreigners who were learning Arabic at the time. What made it immediately interesting was hearing them speak Arabic fluently and confidently. At first it did not feel real that a fully British person was speaking Arabic at that level and actually understanding everything we said.

We tried translating words from English to Arabic and found that some concepts simply do not have exact equivalents. The word “interesting” was one of them. It was a small example but it connected directly to something I had read earlier in the course about how language does not just carry meaning, it shapes it. Reading that idea is one thing. Standing on a street trying to find the Arabic word for “interesting” and coming up short made it feel real.

We also talked about Egyptian proverbs, and I quickly realized how few I actually knew compared to the foreigners beside me. But hearing the proverbs explained and unpacked made me appreciate how creative, humorous, and layered they are. One of the foreign students happened to be from Wales, and by coincidence one of my AUC classmates had also grown up there. The two of them immediately found all these niche shared references that none of the rest of us could follow. I found that genuinely valuable to witness because it showed how identity is not just about nationality or language but about all these specific, overlapping experiences.

We ended the session with an activity where we tried to connect seemingly unrelated Egyptian words and found that they were actually linked in really beautiful ways. I left that afternoon feeling more curious about my own language than I had before, not as something I already know, but as something I am still discovering.

Other intercultural experiences in class

One of the most thought-provoking exercises in the course was built around the concept of intercultural inclusion. We looked at a series of images and asked ourselves whether we would feel comfortable in each scenario. The goal was to get us thinking about who spaces are actually designed for, and whether everyone genuinely has a seat at the table or just technically has access to the room.

This made me think differently about planning and decision-making in multicultural contexts. Things like choosing a time, a venue, a menu, or a format all carry cultural weight that the people making those decisions often do not notice because the defaults already work for them. True inclusion is not just the absence of exclusion. It requires actively thinking about who might feel left out and why.

We also studied the five stages of oppression, which gave me a clear framework for understanding how systemic disadvantage builds over time. Being able to name and differentiate between the stages means being less likely to miss them when they appear in subtle ways. That kind of awareness feels like one of the most practical and lasting things I am taking from this course.

From Pre-Soliya to Post-Soliya, What Changed?

Looking back at my pre-Soliya reflection, I can see that many of the questions I went in with did not get neat answers, but they did get real responses. I had written about wanting to find the line between holding space for perspectives I disagree with and maintaining my own integrity. Soliya did not draw that line for me, but it gave me real practice in staying curious even when I was uncomfortable, and in disagreeing quietly without shutting down.

I had also written about the gap between being curious about other people and being actually equipped to engage with them. Soliya helped close that gap a little, not by giving me information but by giving me practice. Sitting across a screen from someone whose life experiences both mirror and differ from yours in unexpected ways is something you only learn by doing.

The surprises I had were smaller and quieter than I expected. A conversation about questions. A shared laugh about punctuality. A moment of seeing my own culture from the outside. But those small moments tend to stay with you longer than the big dramatic ones.

Final reflection

If I had to pick one thing I am leaving this course with, it would be confidence. Not the kind of overconfidence that comes from thinking you understand other cultures, but the quieter kind that comes from knowing you can sit with someone who sees the world very differently and stay genuinely curious rather than defensive. That feels like the foundation that everything else builds on.

The combination of Soliya, the Tahrir field trip, and the classroom work on inclusion gave me three different scales to practice intercultural competence: a global Zoom room with students from multiple continents, a public square in my own city seen with fresh eyes, and a structural look at how spaces and systems are designed in ways that include some people and exclude others by default.

I do wish I had attended all five sessions. I think the relationships and trust that build over five weeks are different from what forms over three, and I may have shortchanged myself there. Going forward, I want to keep asking better questions, listening before drawing conclusions, and holding my own identity with pride while staying genuinely open to everyone else’s.