Tom Facchine – Medina Stories #08 – Medina University Requirements

			When it comes to Medina University in particular, it, there's not necessarily a minimum requirement
of knowledge that you have to have going into it. Which is actually what kind of makes it nice
because all different types of people, if you're accepted, you can go there, you can benefit and you
can develop yourself.
		

			That being said, the more prepared you are going into it, the more you're gonna get out of it.
Right. So if you go over there with absolutely zero Arabic, and absolutely zero preparation in
Islamic fields of knowledge, etc, etc, you know, when you get out, okay, you'll probably be able to
speak Arabic and probably be able to read some classical sources and stuff, but you might not really
have a really super strong foundation, and Islamic disciplines. If you go over over there, having
already memorized like a good chunk of the Koran, you have down a couple of like, introductory texts
in different Islamic disciplines, then you're just gonna take off, you know, when you get to Medina,
		

			you're gonna be able to advance, you know, in a much more profound way, and you're gonna have a
better grip on a lot of those different fields of study.
		

			As for what someone should be prepared for, they should be prepared for isolation, socially and
otherwise, because it's just you against yourself. And I've said this before, and other sort of, you
know, questions, but it really is just you against yourself. And it is intense, but there's an
emotional and spiritual dimension of studying abroad in something that you might not know very much
about, that. You have to humble yourself. That's one of the main things, I saw a lot of students
that weren't able to humble themselves, and they ended up quitting. You can't, you can't sustain it,
you know, it's just not possible. Like, especially if you're somebody without a lot of Arabic
		

			preparation. When you learn a second language as an adult, you're a kid, you're going back to being
a kid, you know, people are going to treat you like you're an idiot, you know, but you have to go
through it. You know, you have to go through it. And I have I tell people all the time that
absolutely embarrassing experiences that I had, you know, due to some misunderstanding in Arabic, or
there's something that's literally some people, you know, their pride gets in the way and so they
don't put themselves in a situation where they're going to make those mistakes or have to suffer
that humiliation. And if you don't throw yourself into it, you're never going to progress and you're
		

			never going to get through it. You're never going to come out on the other side. So, yeah, I mean,
you have to you have to really, really humble yourself and you have to just roll with the punches as
they say