BA Swahili and Development Studies
SOAS has helped me to understand the world through an academic lens. I originally began my course as a wide-eyed student who wanted to ‘save the world’ and through my subjects and the people I have met here, I received more solid ground work for my ‘plans’. I now know the role of NGOs, bilateral institutions and nations in forging world agendas and that things aren’t as simple as I once so naively believed.
I have learnt Swahili through my degree and eye-opening year abroad and words cannot explain how many doors learning a language can open both here and abroad. I have also studied my mother tongue (Somali) through an academic lens and my new confidence reading Somali changed my perspective on the changing situation there.
All in all, SOAS has widened my understanding of the world and made me hungry to understand it further once my degree is over.
