The Foreign Service Journal, April 2011

menia, and there are few formal processes to smooth the transition from school to work. The class attrib- uted this lack of employment mecha- nisms to Armenia’s slow shift from communism, under which people were given specific jobs by the gov- ernment, to the free-market economy, where jobs are competitive. The uni- versity has a career center, but only some students seemed to utilize its services. Given my role as a human re- sources professor in the United States, we spent a couple of class periods mapping out their career plans, with specific focus on the steps that they would take to achieve their short- and long-term career objectives. They seemed to appreciate this and made it clear that they had never done any- thing like it before. Getting to Know You… While students, staff and some of the faculty stared at me, it was not quite to the degree that I experienced outside of the university. From my observations, this is probably because students and professors at AUA are somewhat more cosmopolitan than the general population. Several have traveled and even lived abroad, which is not the norm for Armenians. In fact, a few professors were Americans of Armenian descent. Few people outside of AUA knew much English, but those who spoke any tried to converse with me — gen- erally after a debate within their small groups as to who would make the ini- tial conversational foray. These were usually female college students, who attended universities other than AUA, where English proficiency is manda- tory for admittance. There were two purposes to these exchanges: To find out why I was in Armenia (I was invariably asked, “What are you doing here?”), and to practice their English. Supplement- ing their bad English and my even- worse Armenian with hand gestures, we had nice, albeit very limited, chats. They were openly appreciative, how- ever, of my willingness to converse with them. During these exchanges, every single person in the vicinity in- tently watched us, and some sidled closer to listen to our conversation. One of the more humorous ex- changes came when I mentioned to a young woman that Armenians stared at me a lot. She immediately re- sponded, “Yes, because you are dark.” This was news to me because in the States, I am generally considered to be on the moderate side of the brown spectrum. Her comment was particu- larly amusing given that some Arme- nians are very swarthy, and she was no exception. In fact, she and I were al- most the same shade. A highlight of teaching the class was our varied cultural exchanges. For example, the geographic identity of Armenia depends on the person with whom one is speaking. When I asked my class where their country was located, there was no consensus. Armenians told me that it was vari- ously in Europe, Eurasia, Asia or even the Middle East (which greatly sur- prised me). Eventually, one student explained that Armenians’ elementary and secondary school education tends to focus more on math and science because those are required university subjects, whereas geography is not. Students were astonished when I told them that the average American 44 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 1 1 The Fulbright program truly is an excellent way for nations to learn about one another. AFSA’s Best Seller The New Edition of Inside a U.S. Embassy is Now Available! Learn more about what goes on ... Visit www.afsa.org/inside for details. PLUS Find More Reading Suggestions at www.afsa.org/ fs_reading_list.aspx. Have a look at the AFSA and State Department readling lists in our online bookstore, offering a wide selction of books on the Foreign Service. AFSA earns a royalty for every purchase you make on Amazon.com when you enter via the AFSA bookstore.