First Meeting with Conversation Partner

I met with my ESL partner Ibrahim recently, and really enjoyed the experience. From Saudi Arabia, he grew up speaking Arabic. A little over a year ago, he came to the United States in hopes to learn English and go to a good school. The universities where he’s from are not as good as the universities in the United States. He described the universities there as not very nice, very crowded, and with less prestige as American schools. He plans on returning home after his schooling here, which I could understand since he will be away from his family for at least 5 years.

I was surprised to know he was not yet a college student, but is hoping to be one next semester. He is currently taking ESL classes on TCU’s campus, and attends a TCU club called “Toastmasters”, where you practice public speaking. I had never heard of this club and thought it sounded very interesting, since public speaking is the #1 fear of most students. Since being on TCU’s campus, Ibrahim has fallen in love with TCU, and would really like to attend school here. Since the scores on his English standardized tests are not high enough to get in, he is working very hard to practice to he can increase his scores, and hopefully attend TCU next fall. Schools like TCU, SMU, UT, etc. all have higher standards for their tests in comparison to a school like Texas Wesleyan. He recently toured Texas Wesleyan, and admittedly did not like it at all. With only 2,000 students, the classrooms and buildings were not as nice as the ones at TCU, and the school seemed to lack the excitement and prestige he was looking for. I think he is going to take a tour at UTA, and see if he likes that better. I could tell by the look on his face that he has really fallen in love with TCU’s campus and atmosphere, and I truly hope he has a chance to come here!

  He is going to major in accounting, which I thought was good since TCU has a very good business school. I told him about various clubs and programs he could join and enjoy once he is here. He asked me about things I was involved in, and I told him about academic clubs, special interest clubs, and intramural sports. He had never heard of the word “intramural”, which I thought was funny because he at first thought it was a type of sport or something. I explained to him how intramurals worked, and told him I have played different ones like soccer and basketball. He apparently has seen people playing soccer on campus and asked if I was one of them. I replied no, but it was cool to see that he did like soccer. I was not surprised since soccer in so popular internationally.

We also found out we have a lot in common when somehow the topic of Dunkin Donuts came up. I was not aware that they had Dunkin Donuts in Saudi Arabia, and he laughed when he told me that his dad kept telling him to buy coffee here, since it was so much cheaper. This reminded me exactly of my dad, who growing up on the east coast grew accustomed to drinking Dunkin every day. Moving to Nebraska, where there are no Dunkins, so my dad would have large amount of their coffee mailed to our house. It was funny to see that both of our dads had a similar obsession. Ibrahim told me there was a Dunkin Donuts in Fort Worth, which I was not aware of. Knowing this, we will likely meet there sometime in the future for our conversation.

Talking to Ibrahim was a great experience. For only knowing English for one year, I thought he spoke very well. You can tell that he has been working really hard to learn the language, and he seems to be very enthusiastic about learning. I really hope he is able to come to TCU next year, because he would be a great addition to our campus. It was cool to see that we had a lot in common, when I had assumed prior to meeting him that it might be hard to find some common ground. With that being said, I am definitely looking forward to our next conversation, and learning more about his life, in relation to mine.