Language of Study: Arabic

Subject Major: Mechanical Engineering

Country of Study: Morocco

Title of Work: A Socioeconomic Ethnography of Morocco

Abstract: Like many people at this Summit, I was not able to complete my second semester in Morocco. Unlike other students however, I was not sent home due to the pandemic, but rather I was unable to find an internship for my second semester. Although it felt like a personal failure at the time, as I reflect on the experience, I now understand how much I learned from it. During my time at my host university, I searched desperately for an internship. I applied for dozens of jobs, internships, and even attended a career fair in Kenitra, a city that was over forty minutes by bus away from my university. I even briefly considered searching in neighboring countries like Algeria or Tunisia. Although all my searches turned up empty handed, each step forward revealed new layers of the socioeconomic landscape in Morocco. As a white, college educated woman, in a post-colonial country once ruled under a French protectorate, there are many complex power dynamics which I became aware of. In this talk, I will discuss some of my personal experiences regarding this topic, including discussions on privilege, gender, language barriers and the ethics of working in a foreign country.

Title of Work (IGP Language): الاجتماعية والاقتصادية اثنوغرافيا من المغرب

Abstract (IGP Language): مثل كثر من الناس في هذا قمة، أنا لم أستطع إنهائه فصل دراسي ثاني في المغرب. لكن على عكس الطلاب الأخرى، أنا لم أذهب بسبب الكورونا فيروس، ذهبت بسبب لم أستطع أن إيجاد فترة تدريب الفصل الثاني. وبالرغم من أني شعرت بالعار، الان أنا أفهم ما تعلمته من الخبرة. خلال وقتي في الجامعة الدولية بالرباط، بحثت عن فترة تدريب. كشخص من البيض ومع تعليم جامعي في بلد ما بعد الاستعمار، هناك كثير من ديناميات السلطة التي تعلمت. في هذه المحادثة، أناقش بعض من تجاربي وأناقش امتياز والجنسانية وحواجز لغوية وأخلاقيات لعمل في بلد أجنبي.

Click Here to View Elevator Pitch

Elevator Pitch Transcript: Kate M Collette: Hello everybody, my name is Kate and I'm a fifth year IGP student and my majors are Arabic and mechanical engineering

Kate M Collette: Last year I studied in Morocco in the city of Rabat at the International University of Rabat. And I just want to tell you a bit about my talk, and

Kate M Collette: What I’ll be discussing at the summit. Like a lot of people do summit, I did not complete my second semester abroad,

Kate M Collette: But while most people went home due to COVID, I actually didn't even start my second semester because I wasn't able to find an internship in Morocco, um,

Kate M Collette: But I wanted to pursue review with IGP because I'm really passionate about it. And so when I got home I enrolled in a language intensive and made up all my credits.

Kate M Collette: So I'm still part of IGP and I'm you know I’m here to share what I learned. And it's not related to any specific internship or work experience, but I think it'll still be really valuable and interesting

Kate M Collette: So in particular, I was going to discuss what it was like searching for a job in Morocco.

Kate M Collette: My personal experience, and you know I applied for dozens of jobs and internships. I even went to

Kate M Collette: A career fair and Kenitra, which is a city that was

Kate M Collette: Like a 40, 45 minute bus ride away from my university.

Kate M Collette: And I pretty much came up came up empty handed.

Kate M Collette: at every corner and I had a lot of really crazy experiences, particularly at the job fair, and it taught me a lot about just the complexity of the socioeconomic situation in Morocco.

Kate M Collette: being a white college educated person in a post colonial country that was once under a French protectorate, there's a lot of really complex power dynamics that I

Kate M Collette: that I kind of became aware of during my job search. So in this talk, I just kind of wanted to discuss my personal experience with that, kind of focusing on those dynamics of privilege and gender as well as language barriers and finally the ethics of working in a foreign country.

Kate M Collette: So I hope you come to my talk, and I really appreciate you listening to my elevator speech and thank you very much. I'll see you there, hopefully

Click Here to View Full Length Video
Full-Length Video Transcript: WEBVTT

1
00:01:00.210 --> 00:01:08.700
Hello, everyone. Thank you for being here today. My name is Kate Collette and this presentation is on Morocco an experiential analysis.

2
00:01:09.960 --> 00:01:24.810
So a little bit about who I am. I'm majoring in mechanical engineering and comparative cultural studies, with an emphasis in North African Studies. I'm the language. I work with and I GPUs Arabic and I say, English is my new

3
00:01:27.750 --> 00:01:38.520
Over the past five years. I studied classical Arabic. The reason which is Moroccan Arabic and all the French I haven't gone to the show it to students.

4
00:01:39.510 --> 00:01:56.430
That I was only in my study abroad country for one semester and in return for an internship and and so to me, got those credits. I actually took a Arabic language intensive at UVA, which was really amazing experience.

5
00:01:57.780 --> 00:02:08.340
So as you know, I'm not a traditional IDP students. So this presentation isn't going to be about my research on since I didn't have an internship is that

6
00:02:08.940 --> 00:02:18.600
For me to go. This presentation is to introduce you all to Morocco, I think it's a country lot of Americans don't know a whole lot about. So hopefully you learned something and then

7
00:02:19.770 --> 00:02:21.900
I don't set a bit of my personal

8
00:02:23.760 --> 00:02:35.580
And finally, could have titled together by diving deeper into the topics of language and opportunity as a foreign student another country.

9
00:02:38.580 --> 00:02:46.590
For those of you that don't know, Morocco is a country located in North Africa on the far northwestern corner the continent.

10
00:02:47.070 --> 00:02:58.860
It's ordered by the ocean to the west and Mediterranean Sea to the north and Alex for this or the appointment Engineer It's actually only got nine miles away from seeing by boat.

11
00:02:59.880 --> 00:03:09.600
I'm here my bra is Morocco starting circa 700 and they were under the influence of the Ottoman starting

12
00:03:12.960 --> 00:03:34.290
In 1912 the French and Spanish protectors are establishing Morocco, which which basically is our sentence colonial powers until the protector for dissolved in 1956 and France held the vast majority of the territory where is staying power in the northern region which is called the reef.

13
00:03:37.440 --> 00:03:38.520
So some basic facts.

14
00:03:39.660 --> 00:03:49.830
In financials on the Constitution draft draft and the bottom of the country is. Do you love as a lot. We've seen for God. The country became

15
00:03:51.240 --> 00:04:08.940
A constitutional democratic planetary in social monarchy. So it's ruled by King, who is a descendant of the hour. And what's driving us back to the fourth. Caleb of the Islamic religion Ali, as long as the leader of the state, but the state guarantees to all the free exercise of

16
00:04:10.650 --> 00:04:19.350
Arabic is the official language of the state, along with 10 years which is dealing with everything all the Moroccan languages.

17
00:04:19.860 --> 00:04:35.820
On the most recent draft also guarantees freedom of expression thought on creation publication of older and artistic materials so that's awesome about pricing tomato. Um, yeah.

18
00:04:37.140 --> 00:04:46.950
So during my study abroad program in Morocco, I was living in LA, which is the capital Robin and attending classes at the International University.

19
00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:57.180
And the reason is actually not in the city, maybe 20 or 30 minutes away by bus I'm that are living on campus in the dorms.

20
00:04:58.260 --> 00:05:01.650
A lot of the students were living in apartments in the city.

21
00:05:02.880 --> 00:05:03.750
To University.

22
00:05:06.030 --> 00:05:13.770
So this is robot is located a bit far more than Morocco and it's maybe only

23
00:05:15.840 --> 00:05:25.800
30 minutes to two hours away from 10 depending on whether you take the fast train or the slow train and like I said, is the capital.

24
00:05:27.300 --> 00:05:30.420
Is located pretty much right on the ocean.

25
00:05:33.120 --> 00:05:44.280
So these are just some pictures from my time in Morocco, I was actually looking at two weddings on the top, middle pictures from the first way me to actually went with the two other IDP students set

26
00:05:45.720 --> 00:05:48.930
And JC was on fire right on that one.

27
00:05:52.590 --> 00:05:56.400
Interesting. Though the other one I GOT TO TO WAS WAITING.

28
00:05:57.720 --> 00:06:08.370
For my friend, and that's the top right picture. Um, you get these really elaborate dresses Moroccan wedding and they really are and if

29
00:06:09.750 --> 00:06:31.230
You are invited to a wedding in Morocco don't pass up this offer because it's a once in a lifetime experience I'm speaking about wedding this top or bottom was an addition, we got in the morning color chicken busty. It's like a sweet, savory chicken dish and it's delicious. I'm

30
00:06:32.760 --> 00:06:39.030
Just from my time in Morocco, the top left one is the oldest tell Morocco displaying classic

31
00:06:39.930 --> 00:06:57.810
Islamic mosaic art style and the bottom one is from the ocean view robot. The city you live in, in the bottom right. One is from an old Medina, which is like the the city center the old city center that you'll find in most rockin cities.

32
00:07:00.660 --> 00:07:13.560
So you might want to widen internship on there is pretty simple. I couldn't find one and reason is because I don't speak French, and

33
00:07:14.760 --> 00:07:17.670
I know that it's actually really difficult find positions.

34
00:07:19.020 --> 00:07:38.190
In the STEM fields, particularly engineering, they don't require us the French and the French isn't using daily communications and my ears. He was really research institution. So they didn't have really positions for me so I had to search outside of university.

35
00:07:39.600 --> 00:07:48.030
And eventually, you know, kept track two handed I decided to attend a Career Fair. Fair in control, which is

36
00:07:48.480 --> 00:08:02.700
A city that's on our early and it's kind of a last ditch effort. It was like, well, even if I had to move cities of every second finish this thing out that I started and I worked so hard and work towards for so many years, and

37
00:08:03.720 --> 00:08:06.900
So our university basically set up a

38
00:08:08.100 --> 00:08:24.300
Of us to take us to connect and most of students that went we're rocking since I'm a university who are seniors and and looking for jobs after they graduated and I didn't really seem to 14 students while I was there.

39
00:08:25.470 --> 00:08:29.130
Anyways. We all gotta spice and drove to LA.

40
00:08:30.630 --> 00:08:31.830
To go to this career fair

41
00:08:33.060 --> 00:08:39.240
And understand sorry might be a bit of background about my university in robot so

42
00:08:40.320 --> 00:08:45.840
Education is actually affordable in Morocco by American standards, I'm

43
00:08:46.950 --> 00:09:03.780
State Association specifically say colleges, the university, I was mentioning is a private institution and it is outrageously expensive by Moroccan standards. So mostly people are, you know, coming from well here classes and

44
00:09:05.310 --> 00:09:18.990
So in our bus, you know, this is it right into the storefront is brand new, and dress up you know that up and we're really nice clothes and so we arrived to teach on this brand new birth order.

45
00:09:20.370 --> 00:09:21.060
And

46
00:09:22.500 --> 00:09:31.410
The first thing you see when we got to the shop here is that there is a line of maybe one one or 2000 people outside just just

47
00:09:32.220 --> 00:09:46.860
Tons of people waiting to get into the doctor and they're only letting in a certain people on time, because it's so popular. So there's this huge sneaking wine outside of the 10th of people waiting to get in and you know

48
00:09:48.450 --> 00:09:52.350
They're Australia, people like let's encourage hub and, you know,

49
00:09:54.240 --> 00:09:57.060
Basically doing we're doing and just

50
00:09:58.710 --> 00:10:15.120
Doing it their best shot and hoping for something. Um, so, you know, this is us. And there's always people on average earnings, you know, obviously I'm middle class people not like this group of

51
00:10:15.570 --> 00:10:29.460
Really wealthy students that just shows up randomly and you know our fancy closing gang office bus and they start kind of just yelling and

52
00:10:30.330 --> 00:10:44.730
calling us names and stuff like that, as we're walking into the tent. And of course, like they know we're coming and roll out the red carpet and like all the guards like open the gate and we're all letting. We don't have to wait. It's just like

53
00:10:46.920 --> 00:11:08.250
All organized beforehand that we can go straight in. And so that makes the new format and helping and you know this was really my second light bulb moment of like, Wow, I really don't know about the culture, I can just insert myself into. Um, and

54
00:11:09.300 --> 00:11:15.960
I think that extreme to regardless of the fact that I didn't get a job, and it was completely unsuccessful. It taught me a lot about

55
00:11:17.610 --> 00:11:30.420
You know what it means to be an exchange student in the country, particularly American um and what you can basically what you can learn from my takeaway from that.

56
00:11:32.610 --> 00:11:36.030
So this experience taught me a lot more interested in

57
00:11:37.320 --> 00:11:51.930
Looking at language in Morocco and I come across this PhD dissertation by Ranger karate, and he was serving young students average age 22 about language attitude in rock.

58
00:11:52.620 --> 00:12:01.800
And it really revealed that Rob has this incredibly complex relationship with language and particularly given their background and

59
00:12:02.160 --> 00:12:19.890
The colonization, and the French and Spanish. So prisons this survey question I asked to to a good job. I should have asked her, and you see that across you know across classes and, you know, independent of how people were educated, um,

60
00:12:21.120 --> 00:12:39.060
French comes out in talking every single category for you know what people respond is the language master for a good private job. So that was my first interesting finding and really supported my phone on with having difficulty finding an internship in Morocco.

61
00:12:41.160 --> 00:12:49.260
Another interesting thing I looked at was, what language should be and what

62
00:12:50.700 --> 00:12:59.700
Should be so this, this isn't reflecting how language currently stands, Morocco, rather, this is reflecting high Moroccans

63
00:13:00.270 --> 00:13:22.830
Feel about language and what they feel, you know, the linguistic identity of Morocco should look like in future, and there's interesting trends that I found is the first is that there's a distinct difference between opinions as you go from lower to middle to upper class with

64
00:13:24.210 --> 00:13:26.310
Kate M Collette: French being more commonly

65
00:13:28.350 --> 00:13:30.000
Business and education for those

66
00:13:31.320 --> 00:13:40.710
In the upper class bracket and the other interesting thing that this kind of made me reflect on is is how

67
00:13:42.270 --> 00:13:51.180
The relationship to the language of the colonizer evolves over time and how the maybe

68
00:13:52.230 --> 00:13:56.310
The generational weight and burden of

69
00:13:57.990 --> 00:13:59.190
X colonial

70
00:14:01.410 --> 00:14:13.230
Country can affect your attitude towards the language and how it might depend whether you're somebody that benefited from that history of colonization.

71
00:14:14.340 --> 00:14:18.690
Or whether somebody who was pushed down because of that.

72
00:14:21.480 --> 00:14:27.090
So this research and my personal experience led me to these questions asked her, so

73
00:14:28.560 --> 00:14:29.610
First, what if

74
00:14:31.500 --> 00:14:42.630
You're traveling to i'm i'm thinking wants to be in a position where I was, you know, in certain people who stops. You know, I could be taking and feeling really guilty about that.

75
00:14:44.190 --> 00:14:46.200
How you affect your environment.

76
00:14:49.080 --> 00:14:50.970
Because you're a visitor and

77
00:14:52.530 --> 00:14:54.720
Second, how to ruin your culture.

78
00:14:56.010 --> 00:14:58.560
Obviously I was missing a lot of information.

79
00:15:00.240 --> 00:15:00.570
You know,

80
00:15:03.060 --> 00:15:05.280
And dogs and

81
00:15:06.840 --> 00:15:26.850
Just like the fabric of the country's history and then historical context. So, you know, I'm read books from authors in our country and read research papers written by people in my country and learn in those ways and maybe read less travel blogs, because they really are health, how much

82
00:15:27.870 --> 00:15:32.280
And how people perceive you think about it, you think about how

83
00:15:35.310 --> 00:15:37.170
He saw what you look like, what

84
00:15:39.360 --> 00:15:40.320
We're going to

85
00:15:41.550 --> 00:15:48.030
See how you fit into the place you're going and how the place in line fits into the broader like

86
00:15:49.200 --> 00:15:53.550
Asset of that country and culture. So yeah, thank you very much.

87
00:15:54.600 --> 00:15:55.530
for listening.

Keywords

Socioeconomics, Gender, Postcolonialism, Language Barriers, Ethics