Alia Kapasi is an international woman. She is the Executive Assistant of Model UN club at College of Charleston. She speaks Spanish, English and Gujarati fluently while also learning Arabic, Hindi, and Swahili. She is a member of the Honors College and an International Scholar. Alia is a double-major in International Studies and Poltical Science with her main interest in the Middle East. And with the potential of winning a free summer-long trip learning Arabic, Alia will be off-campus all of next year in both D.C. and Israel.
Alia came to College of Carleston for the in-state scholarship and the political science department. It just so happened that she was chosen to be an International Scholar and then went to Estonia over the summer. While she may not really be interested in studying Eastern Europe, Alia wants to know more about the Middle East and, more specifically, the Israel-Palestine conflict. But this dedication to international affairs was not why Alia originally made the decision to be a political science major. Instead, her first interest was in Women and Gender Studies. It was through research into this subject that she was led to studying the Middle East. Fom there she became really concentrated on Israel and Palestine.
The most accurate way to describe Alia Kapasi is to say that she is opinionated. Most of my interview with Alia was just asking her opinion of the world and current events. For instance, Alia was originally a Bernie supporter who really embraced the “Bern” before flipping to Clinton for the general election. While she may not have participated in the Charleston’s Womens March and regrets not going, she does believe that “intersectionality is key to equity” between all people. She is currently on Model UN’s China team and in a Chinese foreign policy class because she thinks that understanding Russian and/or China will be better for her career goals.
Alia does not have just one dream job, she has several branching options and she has not decided on one path yet. Her job criteria is that it has to be international. It has to do, in some part, with diplomacy. And it has to sound really impressive when she eventually brags about it at her reunions. As such, her current options are the UN, State Department, Foreign Service and CIA.
All photos courtesy of Alia Kapasi.