Kashaf recently came to the University of Minnesota Crookston as an international exchange student from Pakistan. Kashaf is originally from Rawalpindi, a city in the Punjab province, and is a part of an exchange program called the Global UGRAD Pakistan Program which is funded by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State. She applied to the program and was one of 108 students selected out of over 31,000 applicants. This program sends half of the students to the United States in the Fall semester and the other half in the Spring semester. Kashaf is a part of the Spring cohort.
In order to ease the transition of different cultures, Global UGRAD requires a pre-departure orientation as well as a 3-day welcome workshop in Washington, D.C. to give students information about U.S. culture, laws, and rules.
“I was really excited,” said Kashaf. “I’ve never been out of Pakistan before, so coming here was a totally different experience for me.”
