I am a young woman from Saudi Arabia and I have come to the USA primarily to pursue my graduate studies. I am very dedicated to the field of Counseling Psychology and seek to give it my undivided attention. I am especially attracted by the prospect of studying at XXXX College because of the vast cultural resources on campus and in the surrounding area. I am especially impressed by the possibility of becoming involved with Institute for the Study and Promotion of Race and Culture, especially insofar as Saudi Arabia is rapidly becoming a multiracial society. I also hope to learn from lectures and association with the Center for Child, Family, and Community Partnerships, since children are central to my professional aspirations.

 There is often a great deal of tension in Saudi Arabia created by and surrounding divorce. I have watched now for many years as couples disintegrate and both continue to suffer for many years as a result of the broken home, in addition to the innocent children. I have come to the conclusion that divorce is often a result of a simple misunderstanding or failure to communicate. Your program will help me to develop increasingly sophisticated perspectives and tools of analysis to prepare me for life-long learning and research in the area of marital counseling in Saudi Arabia. While my long term goal is to earn a doctoral degree in my field at some point, I plan to return to the KSA to gain additional professional experience after completing your program. My central interest is in the area of divorce prevention, learning to explore the alternatives, options through enhanced communication, dialogue. Of course, while saving a marriage is often a noble goal, especially in my culture, there are some cases where divorce proves to be inevitable. In these cases, I look forward to developing creative strategies to minimize the pain and suffering of the children. And I also want to help women who have lost their children as a result of divorce.

Furthermore, I believe firmly that psychological counseling and support in a civilized society needs to be performed on a sliding scale so that help can be provided to everyone on the basis of their need, rather than just their ability to pay. At the same time that I plan to practice as a marriage counselor, I also intend to teach as an adjunct professor at a college or university, at least one or two classes in my area of specialization. I am also quite knowledgeable about the media and the Internet, and hope to move in this direction as well. I speak Uzbek as well as Turkish and for this reason I find myself very drawn to those cultures as well and stay close to them through the Internet.

 In 2007, I worked as tutor at an orphanage for 1 year.  Prior to that, from 2003-2006, I served as a volunteer translator for Turkish and Uzbek pilgrims coming to Mecca. I also taught High School English for 3 months in 2009. For so long that I have lost track, I have tutored elementary aged children. Especially in a culture like mine, where the mobility of women is restricted, one has little choice but to learn many things from one’s family and extended family; and I took advantage of the divorces of two of my siblings, in order to learn all that I could about the dynamics involved. I seek a rigorous education in counseling psychology that will provide me with both a theoretical and practical foundation for launching a career in marital counseling. I hope to e able to focus much of the research that I do in your program on the psychology of divorce, and the comparative effects of divorce on single parent vs. and two-parent households.

As a woman from Saudi Arabia, I look forward to contributing to the diversity of your program and learning from my peers from all over the world. I especially look forward to learning from other women about the experiences of love, romance, and childbearing in their cultures: and of course, divorce. Completing your program will inspire me with the confidence that I will need when I return to Saudi Arabia as an activist for the rights of women. In my culture, this takes a great deal of courage which I hope to accumulate over the course of your program. You will provide me with a tool kit so that I will be able to set reasonable goals that can be realized. I have a great deal of hope for progressive change and greater recognition of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, at least in time. As a therapist and a scholar, I hope to be an avid participant in this change.

Saudi Arabia is a very family oriented society. Like most Saudis, women in particular, I place an extremely high value on the family. This is why it would be a great honor for me to attend your program and learn how to be a first rate family/marital therapist. My very presence in this field is itself making me a participant in social change, since most Saudi professionals in the area of psychology are still men. With your help, I will be able to become a participant in the shattering of barriers to women in my country. I will be able to struggle to protect them and to do so in efficacious ways. I want to change stereotypes. I want to help make a path for woman to become career oriented despite being young mothers. I want to teach others how to communicate more effectively. Most of all, I want to inspire the women of my country to defend their rights as wives and mothers, to fight for the custody of their children, and for those who fail, to recover from the loss and go on.

I thank you for your consideration of my application to your program.