When a volunteer with Jusoor, a nonprofit group that works to provide educational opportunities to young Syrians, contacted me, it was with a rare good-news story, she said.
Syria, of course, was one of a half-dozen predominantly Muslim countries included in a temporary travel ban issued in January by President Trump.
Although the Supreme Court ordered the administration to allow student visa holders to enter the United States, colleges expected a sharp drop in Syrian students, many of whom were opting for friendlier countries, like Canada.
But Jusoor had a success. Bushra Dabbagh, 26, was determined and wickedly smart. Even in Aleppo, the scene of some of the fiercest clashes in Syria’s civil war, she’d kept up her studies and found time to tutor girls whose schools had been destroyed. She was to enroll this fall at Northeastern University in a graduate program combining biotechnology and entrepreneurship.
We have to really work hard all the time, 24/7, to make ourself unique to be chosen to study abroad.
When Ms. Dabbagh and I finally spoke, however, she was in Vienna, not Boston. Her visa had been held up for extra screening; such scrutiny was common for Syrian students even before Mr. Trump took office.
In her case, the delay would prove fateful. The night before our interview, the president permanently barred all people from Syria and a handful of other countries from coming to United States. The order was so new, in fact, that Ms. Dabbagh was not yet aware of it.
We spoke about pursuing education in the midst of war, the value of international exchange, and what she would do next.
You were supposed to be starting classes right now. Can you tell me what happened? And why did you want to study in America in the first place?
I always loved science. In my country we have many diseases, like diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and I wanted to go into the biomedical field to help prevent disease, and to find cures. My first bachelor’s degree is in biotechnology engineering, from Aleppo University. But I am not able to have a master’s in that field because, due to the crisis in my country, there is not enough professors. They decided they were going to close the master’s degree for my faculty in 2014, the year I graduated.
I was fascinated about management as well, because it enables you to make the connection between science and the market. I was looking for a master’s that combines those degrees. It was only available at few universities in the U.S. When I checked Northeastern, I found it a perfect match for me.
I was supposed to go this semester, but when I traveled to Lebanon for my interview at the American embassy in Beirut, they told me I had to file a supplementary form. Because of the high cost and the hardness of going out of Aleppo, I didn’t go back. Now I’m waiting for my American visa.
Do you worry that because of the new restrictions President Trump put out last night, barring all travel from Syria, you might not be able to pursue your studies?
Actually, I just heard it from you now.
I am so sorry, I thought you knew.
I really don’t know how it will be. [Pause]
It’s going to be so hard for me, because I found the master’s I’ve been looking for. Such a very special course that combines between two fields of study, it’s not so easy to be found. It’s going to be such a very, very hard — it’s going to ruin everything I was planning for.
You are talking about a dream, something a person was dreaming of for years, planning for. I am capable of going to university and of doing something good in my field. It’s really hard to see that you can’t achieve anything only because you’re from a particular place. While you might be a good person, you might be a very hardworking person, it doesn’t matter.
Because we don’t have many opportunities in our country, we have to be stronger than other students to have opportunities abroad. You can’t just have a regular degree and get accepted to a good master’s abroad. I started a second bachelor’s degree, in management. I speak English and French, and I started to learn extra languages, Japanese and Hebrew. Now I’m learning German. We have to really work hard all the time, 24/7, to make ourself unique to be chosen to study abroad.
You haven’t just been studying, though — you’ve been helping other young Syrians get an education. Can you tell me about that?
When war started in my country, many schools were destroyed. Or students were in a very hot zone, so they couldn’t go to school. I volunteered to teach orphaned girls, 10 to 15 years old. I gave them classes so they could catch up with their peers. We had a challenge to teach them in one year what they missed in three years of being internally displaced. We taught them math, Arabic, English, and science. We did it for a year, until they caught up and took a test to go to normal school.
At the beginning, I was nervous, but when you see those little girls, they think you’re their role model, and they admire you. They wait for you every single morning. This really encourages you to give from the bottom of your heart.
We also established a small enterprise, making and selling perfume candles to support women and their education. Many women in Syria had to drop out of university to help their families generate income, and I was trying to find a way to support them to continue with their education. Before the war I was interested in perfume candles, but due to the market closures, it was hard to find any. So I started to make my own, and many people admired them. With the electricity cut in my city, people were buying a lot of candles. I thought, Why we can’t make perfume candles that help make the stress less?
Much of the time, the only supply route for the city was cut, so we didn’t always have the material we needed. Sometimes we were creative and recycled old candles. And we stored extra raw materials to supply ourselves for the dark days. After six years of war, we learned to be creative.
At what point did you decide you needed to go back to school?
I felt that if I gained more knowledge or more tools, I would be more helpful to people in my country. Especially now in my city, you can’t have a very good quality of education. You need to have mentors, professors that guide you, you have to have scientific laboratories.
I’m trying to catch up what I missed in war. When I lived in war, there was no internet, so I have to dedicate more time to catch up with other peers in my field. I had to really struggle to find things that other students take for granted, like electricity, water.
For us, building our country is a responsibility for the new generation. If we have the tools and the skills, it’s going to make a huge change. After the war will end, inshallah, we need to dedicate ourselves to raise the community, to raise the society again. It’s the responsibility for the upcoming generation, the students, to change the situation.
You went to study at Corvinus University, in Hungary, to finish your second bachelor’s degree. What was it like to leave your family behind?
I lived alone, in Budapest, for the first time of my life. My father wants us to be educated, so he was happy for me to go abroad, although it was hard to send me away. My brothers are younger than me. My older brother, he is studying medicine in Aleppo University. When my younger brother finished high school, my parents sent him to Damascus, because it is safer than Aleppo, and he is studying there.
I have been through many struggle times when I was in Hungary. I had huge support from my professors and my mates in the class. It helped a little bit, but I was always stressed and always thinking about my family, especially when there is no communication. Once, a school in front of my parents’ house was bombed, and I couldn’t reach them. It was a very stressful hour until my mother answered and said they were all OK.
It was very hard, but I have a fixed point in front of me. And I have to reach it in order to be stronger for myself, for my family, for my country. Because the only thing I can offer them is to be successful in my academic life now.
But now it seems like your educational dreams may be further out of reach. I know you’ve just learned the news, but what do you think you will do next?
I will try to manage. But I don’t know what’s going to happen yet. I don’t know. I really don’t know what to say.
I was shocked when I heard of the first ban. I dedicated a whole year to fill out applications, to apply for a scholarship, to get my high grade in Toefl, to be accepted to the university I wanted, my dream university. The university told me, You have to go for it and apply for the visa.
I really am so worried now. I wasted a huge time, and I wasted many other opportunities. For me, if I’m going to look for another scholarship, I will have to wait for another study year. It’s not an easy thing to get a scholarship and to be accepted to university. It’s a lot of effort. It’s really so frustrating that just because I have a certain citizenship, I have to go through this. Because I’m Syrian, I have many more obstacles than other students. I am from one of the lucky countries.
Every student from my country is suffering as well. Years of our golden age is passing. Maybe the situation will change when people tell their stories. When we meet people from around the world, we find that we are somehow similar, we have somehow the same needs and the same dreams.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Karin Fischer writes about international education, colleges and the economy, and other issues. She’s on Twitter @karinfischer, and her email address is karin.fischer@chronicle.com.
