Date: July 2nd, 2012 4:57 AM
Author: Swashbuckling Yarmulke Love Of Her Life
http://www.arabamericannews.com/news/index.php?mod=article&cat=Community&article=5716&page_order=1&act=print.
Amanda Jawad, the 24-year-old Harvard Law School graduate says she’s excited to start working for a
New York law firm later this year.
Amanda Jawad, a 24-year-old Lebanese-American from Dearborn has just recently graduated from Harvard Law School in May with her Doctoral degree. Jawad prepared for her time at Harvard by pursuing a high school education at Detroit Country Day, a private school in Beverly Hills, Michigan. She then pursued her Undergraduate at the University of Michigan, where she studied Psychology and Spanish. She told The Arab American News that she continues to be surprised by the amount of support she has received from the community.
"You won't believe how many people come up to me and say they are proud of me," Jawad stated. "Knowing that I had that much support from the community was really something that surprised me and motivated me."
After getting accepted into Harvard in 2009, Jawad moved to Boston in order to focus on her studies near campus. She says that despite the move, she was still very close to her community. While living in an apartment with a roommate, she still found the time to return home every other month for occasions like weddings and holidays. Jawad states that her time at Harvard was challenging, but it had nothing to do with being an Arab American.
"It was just very challenging in general, it's just a whole other world, being in law school," she stated. "I didn't encounter any obstacles because of my race, but one positive aspect of this whole experience was that I was proud to show people that I was an Arab-American."
Jawad says that she knew of other Arab-Americans at Harvard, but there were very few of them.
"I only knew a few other Arabs, and that was honestly very disappointing to me. We should be represented more in higher education," she stated. "My advice to other girls in our community is to not be scared. It's important to get out of Dearborn and teach the world what Arab Americans are all about. Every individual girl will learn so much and grow so much from an experience like this. There are problems in our community and you can go out and learn something and then bring it back home."
Jawad says that she will continue to strive for more. She plans on moving to New York later this year to work for a law firm in their litigation department. She then plans on coming back to Michigan in hopes for working with the federal or state government as a prosecutor. She says she is also interested in issues related to Islamic Family Law.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1984588&forum_id=2#21001461)