Q Life Magazine Q Magazine (US) December 2015 | Page 14

| Issue 1 and talk about what is really going on in the Arab world.” NCUSAR calculates that more than a thousand Americans have heard about the trip firsthand, and another fifty thousand have been impacted indirectly. And all the students have a new view of the Middle East, thanks to their experience in Qatar. Ali for one has now switched his major, from business to Arabic and Middle East studies, and spent this fall doing a three-month Arabic course in Jordan. And his parents? They own a little store in a mall and encouraged him to go to college to study business, but have embraced his change of direction wholeheartedly. “They are showing pictures and stuff from Qatar to everyone who comes into the store,” he says with a laugh. “They love that I’ve found my passion.” | Aspire Academy in Qatar 14