Graduate School, Allah Is The Best of Planners

18days left until graduation!InshAllah
 

I think its cool to have this blog because I can look back and see how far I got with my dreams...

In May I wrote the following silly but serious  post 

http://hudawritess.blogspot.com/2012/05/funny.html

 

In the end Allah is the best of planners, inshalalh I hope to graduate this Fall
 

SubhanAllah , I noticed I came up with a plan of taking 7 classes but Allah made it easy on me and His plan for me was much better. I was able to take a NYU Arabic Test and I received 8 credits. I remember I didnt want to go to the test because I thought I would be tired since it was during the first week of Ramadan. Instead of taking 7 classes I only had to take 5 alhumdAllah. Now I am graduating and planning for graduate school, but again "Allah is the Best of Planners".

 

You just put in your efforts towards your dream, have trust in Allah,

make salat istghakra and proceed!

 

Heres one of my essays for graduate school, I think it would be cool if I saved this post for another like 10 years and come back to it to see if I ever achieved my career goal, inshAllah if Allah wills!

I often think about why I set the position, “University Dean” as my ultimate career goal. This goal is motivated by my belief and observations that Muslim and Middle Eastern women are underrepresented in this career field. During my years of college, I came to the conclusion that I have never seen a covered Muslim or Middle Eastern woman working as a dean, admissions counselor, or any other administrative position in neither of the largely Middle Eastern populated schools I have attended.  I believe this lack of Muslim and Middle Eastern women in the field of higher education presents a challenge to students who are looking for role models they can relate to, seek advice from , or seek help to overcome different challenges they face as an underrepresented group. Among my goals is to serve as a role model for young for this growing demographic population in the United States. We need to diversify the professional ranks of higher education.

Currently I am a NASPA Undergraduate Fellow and this is a program which was designed is to increase the number of historically disenfranchised and underrepresented professionals in student affairs and or higher education. My mentor is Dr. John Melendez and he is currently the Vice President of Student Affairs at New Jersey City University. During my first meeting with my mentor I told him about my goal of becoming the first Muslim/Middle Eastern women Dean based on the conclusion I have made and the challenges I have found. He said I make a good point and he presented me with the example of New Jersey City University. NJCU is a Hispanic serving institute, and because of this the administration consists of professionals of  Hispanic background including my mentor, and the former President of the University.

My insight to the higher education career field began through my participation in the Hudson County Community College High School Leap Program. The main aim of the program is to give students the opportunity to accelerate the time it takes to earn an associate’s degree. While I was accelerating the time to earn my associates degree which took me one year after graduating high school, I was also building my track towards my career goal. I started to meet and connect with multiple administrators on campus who taught me more about the field of higher education administration.

My connections with various professionals on campus lead me to my first job experience in the Higher Education field as a Student Ambassador. I really enjoyed the rewarding feeling this career gave me as I assisted students in their track towards attaining a college degree. During this job I came to the conclusion that most of the Middle Eastern and Muslim students would come to me first when they had any questions because they had this feeling of comfort as we both come from the same cultural background and spoke a similar language as they would greet and speak with me in my second language Arabic. At that point I realized the importance of having a diversified administration. I also realized that this underrepresented racial and religious group needs a representative in this field to help them face the various challenges that arise when one attends college, especially because a lot of these women are first-generation college students.