Isra Eldosougi is an alumna of the 2015 CLS Arabic program in Madaba, Jordan. She comes from an interfaith family of African, Arab, Caribbean, and American roots, and grew up in East Rutherford, NJ, a town about 20 minutes away from New York City. She is currently in her third year at Bergen Community College, where she studies natural sciences and mathematics. She loves being active in her commun...
Heleana Melendez is an alumna of the 2015 CLS Russian program in Vladimir, Russia. She was born and raised in Los Angeles and is currently in her third year at UCLA, where she studies psychology in addition to Russian language and literature. She is a first-generation American (her parents are from El Salvador); she is also the first of her family to travel to the Eastern hemisphere. When she’s no...
Erin West is an alumna of the 2015 CLS Turkish program in Bursa, Turkey. She is originally from Pittsburgh, and although she loves that city, she doesn’t plan to settle down there any time soon! She is currently in her second year at Brown University, where she studies development. When she has time to take a break from thinking critically about world systems, she loves Couchsurfing, riding her pu...
Dana Fager is an alumna of both the 2011 and 2012 CLS Japanese programs in Kyoto, Japan. She grew up in a suburb of Chicago and currently serves as the Development Coordinator at the U.S.-Japan Council. Why Japanese? Having been born and raised in a suburb of Chicago, I had no connections with Japan outside of occasionally dining at Japanese restaurants. Therefore, I think I greatly surp...
John Alexander (Alex) Miller is an alumnus of the 2015 CLS Indonesian program in Malang, Indonesia. He grew up in Gig Harbor, Washington, and currently lives in Utah where he works as an Advanced Supervisor at Vail Resorts Retail. He has both studied and taught Indonesian at Brigham Young University and the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and he has interned with the U.S. Department of State in...
Upon graduating from Columbia in just a few weeks, I will embark on a journey unlike any I have undertaken before.
Cpl. Michael Calistro, a 2011 Indonesian language graduate of the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, knows first-hand that maintaining proficiency after graduation is very important.
The deadline for the 2016 CLS Application has been extended to Monday, November 30 at 5 P.M. Eastern Time. We encourage everyone to submit their applications as soon as possible, and not to wait until the deadline to submit. The American Councils office will close today at 2:00 P.M. Eastern Time for the Thanksgiving holiday. The office will also be closed on Friday, November 27. However, we will ...
Updated 11/25 @ 12:37pm:Please refer to this post for information on the extended application deadline.Updated 11/24 @ 11:21pm:Dear CLS Applicants:We have been working non-stop with our development team to work on a fix to the issues that brought the application down yesterday. At this point, we believe that we have identified the issue, and have a developed a fix.In order to confirm the reliabili...
