The Quill/Yaling Yu
By Sean Colvin Staff writer
The second “What Matters To Me and Why?” discussion of the school year was on Nov. 2. It featured Susquehanna student and intern for the Office of International Admissions Faisal Al Yousif.
Al Yousif spoke about his life and background as a Saudi Arabian international student studying theater in the United States.
Guests of the discussion laughed and enjoyed themselves as they sat and listened to Al Yousif talk about his family, his education and the sacrifices he had to make to come to the U.S. at the age of 31.
The 36-year-old student told anecdotes about his large extended family and how he arrived at his current position as the first and only Saudi Arabian student studying in the U.S. to earn a degree in theater. Al Yousif is also heavily involved on campus, teaching Arabic as a tutor and acting as house manager for the theater and arts departments. Al Yousif is also a vital resource for Susquehanna’s community of Saudi Arabian students, helping them become acclimated through his position with the International Admissions Department.
Head of Jewish Life Eli Bass said, “I think that as a later-in-life learner, Faisal is a model for students. The social structures in America are not necessarily intuitive, and for students from the Middle East, this is a big struggle to navigate. This is something that I think Faisal gets.”
Al Yousif began learning English at age six after his father brought home a television, and he began watching American programming like “Tom and Jerry.” He wrote down words and phrases he heard so that he could ask about them when his father returned home from work. This was the beginning of Al Yousif’s lifelong career as a learner.
Being the eldest male of six siblings, Al Yousif was expected to take on the role as head of the family when his father died in 2008. He found a job at a power company and worked hard for a few years. After his younger brother graduated high school and opted not to study abroad, Al Yousif saw a window into following his dream.
Since his younger brother remained in Saudi Arabia, he could support the family, and Al Yousif could study in the U.S.
After receiving the blessing of his mother, Al Yousif sold everything—his prized Harley Davidson, his apartment and all of his furniture, which, he said, many people called him crazy for. After all, he had been living a comfortable life with a well-paying job. At 31 years old, he had no chance of making it in America, they told him.
Al Yousif funded his own trip to the U.S. and found Susquehanna where he enrolled in English Language Learners courses for six months before beginning his liberal arts curriculum as a business major. One day, after finding himself at the math center struggling with his homework, Al Yousif had an epiphany.
“If you are miserable in college, you will be miserable for the rest of your life,” he said.
And after having this thought, he seriously considered for the first time what his major ought to be, and had the realization that he wanted to study theater. Faisal found his love for theater in the team aspect of the work—the complex parts coming together to make something greater than its parts, an environment that he finds himself thriving in, he said.
Al Yousif also spoke about the state of Saudi Arabia, which he said is changing due to new technologies and social media. He said that the king of Saudi Arabia’s council of ministers recently discussed whether they would allow studies to be conducted as to whether Saudi society is ready for women to drive cars, a question that divided the council.
Al Yousif is also currently working out the logistics of production for a one act play he wrote called, “Ducks in a Train.” The play is highly political, as it features no female actors but the disembodied pre-recorded voices of women, so that the play may be performed in Saudi Arabia where a woman and a man cannot act together in the same production. The play, he said, is to help educate people about Saudi Arabia, but also to act as a mirror for Saudi Arabian culture.
“It is our responsibility to reflect on our culture,” he said. “I might be challenging views, but I don’t care. My intent is to reach you, like I have been reached by you.”
Al Yousif said that as students, our ideologies and worldview are challenged each day, and that this is especially true for Muslim students in the U.S. But that shouldn’t deter you, he said. Al Yousif still finds time to pray five times every day—prayer being one of the five pillars of Islam—despite the fact that his American commitments don’t always allow him to do so at designated times. He reassured students, “You can be who you are.
