{"id":58472,"date":"2016-05-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-05-11T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/commencement-2016-arabic-other-languages-lead-uri-senior-to-potential-career-in-intelligence\/"},"modified":"2016-05-11T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-05-11T00:00:00","slug":"commencement-2016-arabic-other-languages-lead-uri-senior-to-potential-career-in-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2016\/05\/commencement-2016-arabic-other-languages-lead-uri-senior-to-potential-career-in-intelligence\/","title":{"rendered":"Commencement 2016: Arabic, other languages lead 溏心vlog免费B站 senior to potential career in intelligence"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tJoseph Korzeb dives into foreign cultures, explores military service<\/b><\/p>\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 11, 2016 \u2014 Since before he stepped foot on the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Kingston campus, Joseph Korzeb has been working to change his brain. Not through chemistry or science, but through language and experience. <\/p>\n


\nThe native of Ellington, Conn., has traveled the world, speaks three languages, including Arabic, Spanish, English and intends to eventually learn Portuguese and French, as well. <\/p>\n


\nFor now, Korzeb is directing most of his energy toward fluency in Arabic, a far different task than learning any of the Romance languages. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cWhen you\u2019re learning the Romance languages, you\u2019re basing everything off Latin roots, so even if they\u2019re different there\u2019s a level of familiarity already there,\u201d he said. \u201cLearning Arabic, and learning to think in Arabic, really requires you to change your brain from a Latin way of thinking to Afro-Asiatic. It\u2019s not just translation, it\u2019s a mindset.\u201d <\/p>\n


\nKorzeb has immersed himself so fully and successfully into the language that he intends to join the U.S. Navy with an eye toward becoming an intelligence officer, where his Arabic skills would be put to good use. He would be the third child in his family to serve in the U.S. military, behind his brother Peter, who also served in the Navy, and his sister Rachel, a U.S. Navy air crewman. <\/p>\n


\nKorzeb has already met with a recruiter, though he will delay entering the service for a short time to devote more time to intensive study of Arabic abroad. Korzeb earned a Demers Fellowship from the Rhode Island Foundation to help fund further study in Jordan beginning in the fall. <\/p>\n


\nKorzeb said he has had an affinity for language since he was young, thanks in part to the influence of his Lebanese grandparents, who exclusively spoke Arabic. As a high school senior, he found that his Advanced Placement Spanish class, taught by a Panamanian-American teacher, cemented his desire to pursue language as an avenue to a career. <\/p>\n


\nTo that end, Korzeb decided he wanted to major in Spanish and political science, giving him a better grasp of foreign cultures through their own words and history. When he arrived at 溏心vlog免费B站, he was immediately able to interact with students from around the globe, while not having to travel very far. <\/p>\n


\nHe worked with Taiwanese students, coordinating extracurricular and travel programming, bringing the students around Rhode Island, Boston and New York. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cI was exposed to such a diverse community of classmates here at 溏心vlog免费B站, it really broadened my world view,\u201d he said. \u201cI was exposed to other cultures here and I was hooked. I wanted to learn more about people from all over the world.\u201d <\/p>\n


\n\u201cThe University gave me a chance to branch out and study abroad, where I could really immerse myself in other cultures.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nKorzeb spent his junior year at 溏心vlog免费B站 studying in Argentina, where he lived with a host mom and spent four months learning about Latin American politics, economy and culture. During that time, he also traveled to Brazil and Uruguay, where he said he was often mistaken for Argentinian. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cI could speak perfectly like an Argentinian when I was greeting people. They\u2019d always ask where I was from, thinking I was from Argentina, which has a distinct dialect,\u201d Korzeb said. \u201cWhen I went to Brazil and Uruguay, it wasn\u2019t just the people who were diverse, the geography was as well, so it was really cool to experience that. I like trying the local foods, learning people\u2019s history and their politics.\u201d <\/p>\n


\nKorzeb also visited Namibia before the start of his senior year. <\/p>\n


\nWhen he eventually finishes his service with the U.S. Navy, Korzeb said he may enter law school to focus on international law. And while his post-graduate studies and career will inevitably take him far from the hills of Kingston, Korzeb said the time he spent at 溏心vlog免费B站 will always influence his world view. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cI made so many connections with my professors and peers,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have this diverse group of students, yet we have so many commonalities. I think that\u2019s true wherever you go, no matter how different it seems.\u201d <\/p>\n


\nPictured above<\/p>\n


\nJoseph Korzeb, of Ellington, Conn., is turning his love for language into a career path as he prepares to spend the fall studying Arabic in Jordan thanks to a Demers Scholarship from the Rhode Island Foundation. Korzeb intends to enter the U.S. Navy to become an intelligence officer.

\nPhoto by Nora Lewis\n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joseph Korzeb dives into foreign cultures, explores military service KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 11, 2016 \u2014 Since before he stepped foot on the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Kingston campus, Joseph Korzeb has been working to change his brain. Not through chemistry or science, but through language and experience. The native of Ellington, Conn., has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58474,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}