My experience that changed my perspectives
"Have as your goal to do your best and to make a difference. We are in the world to make a
difference, and everything we do changes the world." Said Oliver Wendell Holmes. My experience for
being a Fulbrighter in North Carolina in 2007/2008 has completely changed my social and academic
life as it created new ways and perspectives to interact with the American society in different ways.
As a faculty in the dept. of information and library science at Cairo University I used to teach
what I believe it is right for my students to learn from my course and I have always have a great
interest to evaluate the huge amount of resources and information that are published on the web and
how people are using it and I have always wondered how accurate they are and do users know that?
From this point I entered the metadata world as a great extension to my PHD research topic. So when
I applied to the Fulbright Scholar Program I thought it would give me an opportunity to pursue my
commitment to researching in electronic resources and metadata and how these elements would
make great differences in retrieving, preserving and rating any resources on the web and to share this
research experience through workshops, talks, research papers and experiment. But this program also
opened a secret door for me to have an excellent culture exchange experience with the American
society in general and the K-12 Students in specific.
During my grant period, I spent a rewarding time from August 2007 until May 2008 in Chapel
Hill, a big town that usually called the University of North Carolina-UNC town because everything in
the town works according to the university system; transportation, holidays…etc. While there, I had
gathered as much resources as I can get from different libraries on campus to get a clear idea about
my research interest. I consider myself lucky because I had a great opportunity to get in direct contact
with professionals and folks who helped me find my way and adjust my needs. Additionally I had a
chance to take different classes that would help me get a theoretical background about my project
topic.
Another academic experience that I would never thought I would have is to work closely with
the library of Congress through a project for web capturing. Actually working in this project improved
my sense of managing and administrating digital projects and provided me with an outline of what are
the steps to be done in any digital project and to practice what I have learned in metadata field.
A Third practical experience that i had was at School of Information and Library science-SILS
Lab where I spent a fair amount of time in designing and digitalizing my sample of the collection. I was
impressed by the humbleness, professionalism, and helpfulness of the people there who were always
ready at anytime to provide me with what I needed.
My most valuable time of my Fulbright experience was having a chance to participate as a
presenter at Carolina Navigators program at the center for Global initiatives. In this event, I had the
chance to share the culture, history, daily life and work of Egypt with the Chapel Hill – Carrboro
schools from the age of K-12. I couldn’t imagine how keen the kids to learn more and more about a
new country. “Egypt” for them wasn’t just a country; it was the “land of secrets”. I enjoyed being with
them as they enjoyed being with me, actually I received lots of comments and “thank you cards”
written by their little hands showing that they didn’t only enjoyed it, but they understood it, absorbed
it and asking for more…moreover, I had a chance to get with the home scholars student from different
ages and talk about different things that they were always wonder about Egypt.
“Knowing people’s traditions actually helps to understand them”. I think the American
community is a blend of different cultures (a land of many colors), it doesn’t matter what religion you
are, what place you came from, what skin color you have, people all blend in one pot and interact
together. From this perspective, I describe being part of the American holidays traditions such as
thanksgiving, Christmas time, Valentine ’s Day …etc. and traveling around the country as one of the
most learning experiences that I had during my Fulbright grant.
I present this story mentioned above to invite and encourage every Egyptian scholar who is
living or studying in USA to read my story and to make a difference in his community by sharing his
knowledge, culture and feelings as he learns from studying there.