Bachelor of Arts in Middle East Studies

The Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures focuses on the deep historical ties between the many and varied cultures, religions, literatures, and languages of the Middle East (Afghanistan, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Yemen, United Arab Emirates), North Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia), and South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka). Having crossed such wide-ranging intellectual and regional boundaries for several decades, being interdisciplinary and inter-regional by our very nature, we teach at least six languages at any given time (currently, Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Persian, Sanskrit, and Urdu, languages spoken by 32% of the world's population). We have an impressive array of expertise and specialization among our faculty members: Language Pedagogy, Literary Studies, Linguistics, Islamic Studies, Comparative Literature, History, Media Studies, Anthropology, Film Studies, Philology, and Gender Studies. We also have quite a heterogeneous faculty in terms of diverse demographics (American, Indian, Israeli, Iranian, Jordanian, Lebanese, Palestinian, Syrian, Pakistani, Yemeni).

High School Transcripts.
Typically, the most important factor in the admission evaluation process is demonstrated academic achievement in a challenging secondary school program.
The admission committee looks for applicants who have completed the most rigorous academic courses available in their secondary schools and recommends that prospective students should exceed minimum high school graduation requirements. We require an official transcript. The secondary program should include no fewer than 16 academic courses and must include the following courses:

English 4 units
Mathematics 4 units
Foreign Language 2 units
Science (from among biology, chemistry, and physics) 2 units (*)
Social Studies 1 unit

A TOEFL or IELTS score should not be more than two years old. Depending on the school, most admitted graduate students attain a minimum total score of 90 on the internet-based (iBT) TOEFL (including sectional minimums of 22 in speaking, 22 in writing, 23 in reading and 23 in listening). The minimum paper-based TOEFL score requirement is usually 600, and the minimum IELTS score requirement is 7.0.