Hello everyone! Welcome back to another one of my blog posts! Today, I have a very interesting blog for you. I’ll be sharing with you my experience at the Soliya Exchange Program. I’ll first share with you two interviews I had to conduct as part of an assignment. The interview question that my group and I agreed upon was “What is one stereotype that you have seen or heard that you later realized was false? What experience allowed you to realize this?”. Without further ado, let’s get into it!

Interviews

For the Soliya interview assignment, I interviewed two of my friends. The first one, Abdelrahman is a general practitioner who works in one of the governmental hospitals. The other friend, Mahmoud, is an AUC undergraduate student who studies finance.

Abdelrahman’s interview was interesting, mainly because I did not expect his answer. Abdelrahman talked to me about his experience during his clinical rotations. He said that one stereotype he heard was that women were too emotional to work in high-pressure roles, especially in leadership or critical decision-making positions. He added that he had realized how false this was during my clinical rotations, where he worked closely with several female surgeons and emergency physicians. He explained that their ability to remain calm, decisive, and focused under intense pressure was remarkable. In fact, he said that they often brought an added level of empathy and communication that improved patient outcomes and team dynamics. He concluded that this experience showed him that emotional intelligence is not a weakness it’s a strength, and women in high-stakes roles consistently disprove that outdated stereotype.

Mind blowing. Is it not? I did not expect Abdelrahman’s answer, but it makes sense to me. I accompanied Abdelrahman once during his clinical rotation and I can confirm that it is very difficult to be a surgeon in this environment, especially when there’s a lot of patients going around. Therefore, I have to say I agree with Abdelrahman that women in these high-pressure roles are refuting stereotypes.

Mahmoud’s interview was about something. Mahmoud talked to me about learning. He said that as a child, it was embedded into his mind that if someone is bad at something during their earlier school years, they will be bad at this thing for the rest of their lives. However, he added that as he grew older, he found this idea to false. For example, he said that he was not good in Math – I think a lot of us can relate – during his school years, but when he revisited the same concepts in courses during his Freshman year at AUC, he was able to understand the concepts fully. He added that defeating such a stereotype made him feel better about himself, and he concluded by saying that a persons ability to learn and understand certain concepts doesn’t get weaker when they grow up, or when they graduate from school, instead it depends on that person’s grit and tenacity.

I agree with Mahmoud. Based on my experience, I was not good at Math either during my school years, and I had more passion for science – Biology, Chemistry, etc. However, when I took Math courses during my university freshman years, I was able to do well, albeit with some effort and hard work from my side. Therefore, I can conclude that I agree with Mahmoud’s answer.

I think that it was interesting to hear from both Abdelrahman and Mahmoud, and that there answers expanded my perspective about stereotypes and its different types. Therefore, I think that both of their interviews were informative and useful.

Connect Program

In the beginning, my group and I were struggling to find a suitable question for the assignment. However, I think the questions that my group and I agreed on were interesting. For example, the question was able to spark varying responses, as can be concluded from Abdelrahman and Mahmoud’s answers. Moreover, I think that my questions were successfully able to communicate the different perspectives about stereotypes in the community. For example, Abdelrahman shared with me something that is different than what Mahmoud shared. This is important because it indicates that what we view as stereotypes differs from one person to the other. Moreover, I think that they both were able to successfully share how their perspectives on these stereotypes changed. Therefore, I think that I was able to successfully communicate the exchange of perspectives in my community with my interview questions.

The Connect Program was interesting because I was exposed to different perspectives and ideas. When we were talking about the war on Gaza in one of the sessions, I realized that we all had different perspectives. For example, some of my colleagues were from Western countries and did not know much about Gaza. On the other hand, we had a Palestinian student in our group that educated us about Gaza and the war. This is important because this discussion made me realize that although we are different, we were able to connect with each other as human beings. This was especially present in our last session, where were exchanging different things about our own cultures and festivals, such as food, clothing, etc. I found this session very enjoyable and fun, because we were able to bond as human beings. This is important because this helped change my perspective on differences, and it allowed to see that people can still communicate and bond despite their difference. Therefore, I found the Connect Program’s experience interesting, enjoyable, and insightful.

All in all, the Soliya experience was fruitful because I was able to learn about different cultures and perspectives, which is important because this helped me widen my horizons and perspectives.

That’s it for today’s blog. Let me know what you think in the comments down below, and see you in another blog!

Header Image Credit: Link.