A Year in the Fulbright Life: Hagar’s Story

For the next year, Fulbright MENA will be showcasing a handful of students as they study in the United States with their new series, A Year in the Fulbright Life. Each month, spotlighted students will share an update as they continue on their Fulbright journey.

August 2021

Starting grad school in itself is difficult, let alone in a completely different country during lockdown! My first semester here was terrible; I was homesick, lonely, and overwhelmed with school and research work. I wouldn’t wish this feeling on anyone, that’s why I try to welcome and help any new grad students I can!

This fall, a new PhD student, Janelle, joined our department and I made sure to help her as much as possible. Together with fellow PhD student Kyra, we put together a delicious potluck dinner. For my dish, I cooked Koshary, one of Egypt’s most famous street foods!

September 2021

Luma, a projection arts festival that happens exclusively at Binghamton, took place this month in the downtown area! My friend and I decided to go and we were amazed by how beautiful it was! Each building had a different theme or story to tell. Some of the light shows were interactive and we were able to vote for which art show we liked the most! I am so grateful that I got the opportunity to attend it this year since I will be back home next year.

October 2021

At the beginning of this month my friend, Janelle, and I decided to go on a hike at Robert H. Treman State Park. We wanted to enjoy the last bit of fall before the winter comes and enjoy the beautiful colors of the trees as they transition from green into all shades of orange! We were also able to see the famous Lucifer Falls and took some great pictures! After our hike, we went to Ithaca where we had dinner and got to meet Marigold, one of the beautiful cats at a cat cafe there!

November 2021

November is Thanksgiving month! I am always excited to celebrate Thanksgiving with my friends here in the United States — and eating delicious food, of course! But this year is different. I am graduating in four months, so I’ve had a lot of lab work to do before I defend my thesis. That’s why this year I celebrated Thanksgiving with my beautiful plant friends!

December 2021

My friend Kyra and I wanted to do something festive in December, so she invited me to see “A Christmas Carol” with her at a local theatre in Binghamton. I had such a great time watching the play, and we got to drink delicious hot chocolate afterwards!

January 2022

With my graduation date approaching and the number of COVID cases increasing, it has been really difficult to get out and participate in any activities. However, having my birthday in January gave me the opportunity to pause for a bit and take some time off to celebrate! I am lucky to be surrounded by amazing friends who helped me celebrate my birthday and make the best out of it. My friends and I got together to cook some delicious food, and we ate lots of cake, too!

February 2022

Even though February was a shorter month, a lot happened! My friends and I decided to celebrate Galentine’s Day by going out for dinner and just taking some time for ourselves. We enjoyed some delicious food, chatted, and relaxed! We enjoyed some delicious food, chatted, and just relaxed!

Also, this month I received something special in the mail. I ordered a handmade graduation stole with the Egyptian flag so I can wear it proudly and represent my country during my graduation. Although this time is extremely stressful with writing my thesis and finalizing my experiments, this reminded me of how close I am to the finish line!

March 2022

March was a crazy month full of lots of events and work! I have been working very hard on my thesis in order to graduate on time. During that time, my American best friend invited me to have dinner with her, her partner, and her father, so that was a perfect opportunity for me to take some time off! We went to a Hibachi restaurant where we watched the cooking show and had some great food. This month I was also invited to visit Yale University. I saw the campus’s beautiful science building and went hiking at East Rock Park where we saw a beautiful view of New Haven from the top of a vista.

April 2022

April was definitely one of the busiest and most stressful months of my master’s program! I had a lot of thesis writing to catch up on, but the hardest part was finalizing all of my experiments, archiving everything, and cleaning out my desk. I found myself becoming more emotional than I originally expected. I felt uneasy putting everything in one lab notebook and in two plastic boxes. These two boxes marked two years’ worth of tireless work. They contained seeds from more than 300 unique individual plants that I have grown and taken care of from the day they were baby seedlings, until the day they matured and wilted. Even though I felt sad throughout April because it was an official end to a big chapter of my life, I also felt relieved that I was so close to completing my degree!

May 2022

I can’t believe I made it! May marked the last month of my master’s program and it was such an eventful month. I completed and defended my thesis, packed everything up, said goodbye to friends, took some awesome pictures in my graduation gown, and made it back home to Egypt. If someone had told me two years ago that I would earn a Fulbright to pursue a master’s degree in the United States, I would not have believed them. My first year of grad school was really difficult in every possible way; I remember days when I cried myself to sleep every night thinking I wasn’t good enough and I should just quit and go home, but I kept pushing forward and passed with flying colors! After thinking about the past two years, I can say with certainty that I’m genuinely proud of myself. Here’s to resilience, to pursuing dreams, and to the Fulbright Program, who made them come true!

Hagar is a 2020 Fulbright student from Egypt. She is studying Biological Sciences at Binghamton University.

Follow updates from Hagar and other Fulbright students on our Facebook and Twitter pages. Check back here every month for more updates on the blog and Medium Series to see what Hagar does this year!