Catherine (Cate) Shields ’19 spent the summer exploring the Turkish language and culture in Baku, Azerbaijan at the Azerbaijani University of Languages, learning approximately one academic year’s worth of university-level Turkish during an eight-week period. Earlier in spring 2019 she won a Critical Language Scholarship (CLS), a fully funded summer overseas language and cultural immersion program in the U.S. State Department for American undergraduate and graduate students to study languages deemed critical to national security and competitiveness: Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Swahili, Turkish, and Urdu.
Shields is presently at home in Hilton, NY catching her breath and preparing to depart again, this time with an initial destination of Ankara, Turkey as a U.S. Student Fulbright award winner for that country. She will serve as an English Teaching Assistant (ETA) in a university or post-secondary institution for a year, expanding her abilities with Turkish and serving as a cultural ambassador in a local community.
The Fulbright U.S. Student Program provides grants for individually designed study/research projects or for ETA Programs. During their grants, “Fulbrighters” meet, work, live with, and learn from the people of the host country, sharing daily experiences. The program facilitates cultural exchange through direct interaction on an individual basis in the classroom, field, home, and in routine tasks, allowing the grantee to gain an appreciation of others’ viewpoints and beliefs, the way they do things, and the way they think.
After her Fulbright adventure, Shields is planning to enroll in a graduate program in Middle Eastern studies, exploring a range of fields, including history and Islamic studies, as well as learning Arabic and Farsi.
Cate's experience—in her own words
"The CLS program itself was extremely intensive. To live and breathe Turkish in a country where it was not widely spoken brought its own set of challenges, but I learned an incredible amount. Still, it was the experiences that happened outside of the classroom that I will cherish most. The first day I met my host family, they took me to a bazaar and had me try ten different types of caviar. I quickly found that while I didn’t love the taste of fish eggs, I genuinely loved spending time with my new family. I enjoyed having unlimited access to all the çay (black tea) and Kahvaltı (Turkish breakfast) that I wanted, and the seemingly unending meyve (fruit market) was a plus as well. I will thoroughly miss wandering through the labyrinths of Içerşeher (Old City) and spending Fridays soaking at the Hammam (Turkish Bath House).
While in Baku, I had the chance to visit the largest mosque in the Caucus region, the Heydar Aliyev Cami. Even though I spent a solid chunk of time at Geneseo as a History major studying Islam, experiencing the religion in a culture and environment where it thrives made it that much more special. I just enjoyed being fully engrossed in a religion I have to upmost respect for. To wake up each morning and fall asleep each night to the call to prayer was truly beautiful.
I find it hard to put into words the profound impact living in Baku this past summer has had on me as an individual. When the program finally neared its end, I found I had not just gained proficiency in the Turkish language, but another place to call home and a family to come back to. Baku was unique in that it captured the country’s diversity, integrating its Soviet roots with influence from the Middle East as well as the United States. Having gained its independence less than thirty years ago, Azerbaijan is comparatively young. It was fascinating for me to experience living in a country that has not yet solidified its identity while reckoning with my own. As I gear up to spend the next year of my young-adult life living and teaching in Turkey, one thing is for sure: I’m excited to find out."
Follow Cate's journeys on Instagram @catesshh