{"id":1571,"date":"2017-11-09T14:14:14","date_gmt":"2017-11-09T19:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=1571"},"modified":"2024-05-07T13:37:22","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T17:37:22","slug":"coming-america-twice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/coming-america-twice\/","title":{"rendered":"Coming to America (twice)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A
\nI<\/span> arrived on campus at 1 a.m. on a cold morning in January 1980\u2014a 20-year-old freshman from Amman, Jordan. Hours earlier I had landed at JFK, and after two bus rides and a taxi, I was knocking on the door of Cedar Hall. A senior let me in and showed me to my room. He wished me good luck and said goodnight. The semester hadn\u2019t started and the dorm was eerily quiet, but I knew I would fall asleep quickly.<\/p>\n

The next day I was so homesick that I called my brother in California and told him I was going home. Using the money that was supposed to last me through the first semester, I took a taxi back to JFK and bought a plane ticket to Jordan. I didn\u2019t realize then how crazy my actions were. I didn\u2019t come from a rich family; my parents had borrowed money from relatives to fly me to the U.S. But I didn\u2019t care. All I could think of was going home.<\/p>\n

I stayed in Amman for two days. Then I went to the American embassy and applied for another visa to go back to Monmouth. It was the best decision I\u2019ve ever made.<\/p>\n

I arrived back at Cedar Hall and knocked on the door at almost the same crazy hour as before. The same senior who had greeted me came running out, asking where I had been. I hadn\u2019t told anyone I was leaving, so he thought I was lost. When I explained what had happened, he didn\u2019t believe me.<\/p>\n

Given a second chance, I worked hard to succeed\u2014both for myself and to make my family proud. I made so many friends in my time at Monmouth. I took classes in beautiful Wilson Hall and saw Annie<\/em> filmed there. I learned to program in PL\/1 on a keypunch machine, and remember walking across the hall to hand my cards to the operator in the computer room, who ran them through the reader. As a member of the International Club, I helped run our annual parties on campus, which featured authentic food, colorful costumes, music, singing, and dancing. I also worked part time at the famous Rhapsody in Blue restaurant in Long Branch, where the owner, Yvonne, would introduce me to customers as \u201cBase, the young man from \u2018Jordanie.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

After graduating with a bachelor\u2019s degree in computer science, I went back to Jordan for six years. In 1990, I moved to Australia and took a job as a PL\/1 programmer for an American bank in Sydney. I\u2019m still there 27 years later; these days my responsibilities include managing the Asia Pacific region projects.<\/p>\n

My experience as an international student at Monmouth was rich and inspirational, both academically and culturally. I had great professors and received tremendous support from them throughout my studies. I am where I am now because of Monmouth, and for that I will forever be grateful and proud to be a Monmouth alumnus.<\/p>\n

Share your Monmouth experience! Email us at magazine@monmouth.edu<\/a> or write us at My Monmouth, <\/em>Monmouth magazine, Alumni House, 400 Cedar Ave., West Long Branch, NJ 07764.<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My 17,000-mile odyssey to become a Hawk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":1569,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"{\"x\":32,\"y\":44}","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-currents","category-tides"],"thumbnail":"\"\"","catString":"Currents, Tides","issue":"Fall 2017","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1571"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11793,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571\/revisions\/11793"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}