Meet Our Students

Major: Civil Engineering (College of Science and Engineering)

"As an international student, I believe that knowing and understanding new languages is a key competent in bridging relationships between communities and cultures. Coming from Oman, I have seen how important Urdu is in our community. It’s exciting seeing students with different backgrounds interact in a new language."

PSEO Student

"My name is Rahema Rashid, and I am a second year PSEO student, hoping to major in biomedical engineering. I chose to study Urdu because it is my mother tongue and is spoken by the majority of my family members in Pakistan. Being raised in the US my whole life, however, I spoke mostly in English at home and had limited speaking and comprehension skills and weak writing skills in the Urdu language. This made communicating with my Urdu-speaking relatives difficult. But after just half a semester in my first Urdu class, I am able to read and write in Urdu, along with being able to speak with a better understanding of grammar and syntax. My family is impressed with my improvement."

Major: Urban Studies

"I was really excited to start Hindi this year because I wanted to become more familiar with the language and culture of an area I would really like to study and/or work in in the future. There are lots of scholarships to study Hindi abroad, too, which is a great incentive! Not to mention watching Bollywood movies would even kind of be like studying! I have enjoyed getting to know my classmates, many of whom have been in both of the semesters of Hindi I've taken so we've all gotten to know each other really well. It's not as hard as I thought to learn how to write, which feels a little bit like a magic power now that we've been using it all year."

Major: Global Studies

"There are lots of opportunities in class to ask questions and interact with other students in Hindi, more than in any other language class I’ve taken. I chose to study Hindi because it is a beautiful language spoken by one of the largest populations in the world, but my interest in the language and Indian culture has exponentially grown since starting HnUr 1011 last semester."

Major: Psychology

"My interest in other cultures and languages stems from early childhood when I realized how much passion I had for learning about the world around me and the people who inhabit it. When I saw that Hindi was offered at UMN during my orientation, I decided to register the next day. What attracted me to this minor was that I knew nothing about the language and wanted to learn."

Major: Human Physiology 

"Growing up in the United States in an Urdu-speaking household and community, I gained the ability to communicate in Urdu as best as I could. However, after starting my formal education, I preferred to speak my comfort language of English because I was not fluent in the Urdu language. As I began my academic career at the University of Minnesota, I was unable to speak, read, or write Urdu. Over the last 3 1/2 years of taking Urdu classes at UMN, I have seen a dramatic improvement. I feel confident with all facets of the Urdu language. Urdu class has helped me to successfully navigate through the social and academic compositions of the Urdu language and has opened doors for me that I never thought would have existed. In the future, I plan on visiting Pakistan as a physician to provide my services to underserved regions. I hope to do this with my fluency and command of the Urdu language acting as a magnet to effectively communicate with my patients. I am very grateful for the Urdu class as it has helped me gain skills that will be applicable to my personal and professional life."