( 36 Friday, January 3, 1986 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS EDUCATION Americans in Tel Aviv University's Overseas Student Program use the entire country as their "classroom." Israel: • An Exhilarating Setting For College Study . Every year, about 1200 American students study at Israeli universities, where they can learn the country's customs while still obtaining college credit. , A few years ago, studying knew little about the country at a foreign university was itself, and lacked any knowl- considered an unusual under- edge of the Hebrew language. , taking. Now, an increasing Tel Aviv University is number of students utilize large, with approximately the opportunity to become fa- 20,000 students. Because miliar with another country's most of those enrolled have. customs while obtaining col- completed the mandatory lege credit. Indeed, every ' military service and are over year approximately 1,200 the age of 21, they tend to be men and women from the serious about their studies, United States alone choose to and with a mature outlook on study for a semester or a year life. American students ad- at Israeli universities. Israel mire the average Israeli stu- reciprocates by providing an dent, who dedicates himself exhilarating setting for aca- to about 30 credits per semes- demic pursuits, with many ter and thus may complete dynamic programs available. his undergraduate degree in' In fall, 1984, exactly a year three years' time. Tel Aviv ago, I studied in Israel through University offers a wide my participation in the Tel range of academic specializa- Aviv. University Overseas tions in both undergraduate Student Program. Then a and graduate programs. junior at the University of We began our studies at Maryland, College Park, I the university with a six hoped to broaden my cultu- week-long ulpan, an intensive ral, social, and religious aware- Hebrew class. For five hours ness; develop leadership a day, five days a week, we skills; and enhance my gene- struggled with this unfaniil- ral education. Aar language. My Tel Aviv University Those of us with no experi- overseas group was predomi- ence in Hebrew were placed nantly composed of Jews in the Absolute Beginners from he United ,States and class. There,' we attempted to Canada, but there were also form the curves and loops of two American blacks, a squiggly Hebrew letters. young woman from China, a Learning principles of Heb- daughter of a Swedish am- • remotrammar, which at first bassador, and a born-again seemed to be composed of ex- Christian. Many of us had ception upon exception, was never been to Israel before, a triumph. We learned simple . BY TALI GRODZINSKY Special to The Jewish News U phrases and expressions, which enabled us to hold sim- ple conversations. Others of us. had more flu- ency in Hebrew. At higher levels, we began to peruse the newspaper, read literature, and understand excerpts from textbooks.' We rapidly scrawled from right to left across the blue parallel lines of a notebook page. Technical vocabularies in the area of medicine, law, and engineer- ing were emphasized. We practiced dialogues and tried to perfect our pronunciation. In the supermarket, bank and post office, we twisted our newly-found Israeli tongues in an attempt at tru- ly fitting in with the natives. Many Israelis waited patient- ly as we stammered ow re- quests; some Israelis interrupted, only too willing to practice their English. But slowly and only with stub- born insistence on speaking Hebrew at every available op- portunity, we did improve. Our regular studies began, similar to all Israeli univer- sities, after the High Holi- days at the end of OCtober. Classes for our program were taught in English, and were specifically designed for us to transfer the credits to our home universities. Some of our professors had been edu- .