What is it like to be a MAPMES student?

Making the decision to attend graduate school in Israel wasn't easy for me. For starters, I had never been to srael before. The only Hebrew I knew was “shalom.” All I knew was that Israelis ate a lot of falafel, the beaches were nice and that bad things happened on the buses sometimes. I was 27 years old and working as a journalist and web editor in New York. My day job was nice, but I couldn't see myself staying there forever. Freelance journalism work was interesting, but I wanted something to give myself the extra edge. I lived in a cramped one-bedroom apartment in an overly hip Brooklyn neighborhood and was desperate for a change of pace. So I applied to MAPMES and was accepted. I had heard good things about Ben-Gurion University from Israeli friends I knew from the city. Benny Morris' name was familiar from the New York Times and the professors all came up in Google Scholar with interesting papers. And, yes, the tuition sealed the deal. I could get an MA for one fifth of the price it would go for in America. Off it was to Israel. Now it's a year later. I decided to extend my time in Israel and write a thesis on a subject that interested me. I got over my initial distaste for Be’ersheva (let's face it – it's a hell of an adjustment from New York) and found some good places to hang out in and surprisingly great nightlife. Most importantly, I made wonderful friends from all walks of life who I'll stay in touch with forever. Yes, there was Operation Cast Lead and Beer-sheva was hit by rockets. We got a few weeks' break from school and had a few close calls. I learned what rockets smell like upon impact and sleepwalked my way to the bomb shelter. But I met Israelis from every conceivable background and learned Hebrew from them. My first week it was “mah koreh?” and “espresso kafool” but then I started understanding sentences and then, speaking. In the classroom we learned Arabic. By the end of the year, I had a decent grounding in two new languages. Not bad. MAPMES was a great experience. Coming to Israel and restarting school was one of the biggest life changes that I ever made. But my fellow students and the professors and staff all made it worth it. Maybe the dormitories here are not the best and maybe Ben-Gurion's library won't have that one book you need, but everything else more than makes up for it. When I come back to the United States, it will be with a sad heart. I never thought I'd say it, but I had fun in Be’er-sheva.