Zack Cuyler

GRD ’14
Age: 26
Hometown: Houston, Texas
Major: Arab Studies

How does your experience as an undergraduate to your time at Georgetown?
Undergrad and grad school are really different. I enjoyed [University of Texas, Austin] a lot, but I think I also got to enjoy Austin a lot because I wasn’t stuck in my room reading and writing all the time. 

What’s the most interesting thing about what you’re studying?
I’m studying the history of the Middle East, specifically Lebanon and Syria, and I think the most interesting thing has been looking at the way that things that happen kind of far back in Syria’s past have played out in the current conflict there. 

What do you want to do after finishing your master’s degree?
I think I’m going to work for a year or two, try to get a job with a think tank in D.C., and maybe try to move on to a Ph.D. program in history.

Did you have any perceptions of Georgetown that have changed since you’ve been on campus?
I originally wanted to go to undergrad here, but I actually didn’t know much about it at the time. It’s actually kind of like a blank slate that’s been filled in. Honestly, I feel like grad students are really, really isolated from the campus as a whole. I feel like I don’t really know Georgetown itself terribly very well. I know my department very well; I know the history department very well. As for the campus as a whole, I’m not that familiar. 

How have you found your experience as a grad student generally? 
I really like the people in my program. My program and the programs it’s affiliated with in MSFS have pulled together people from a lot of different backgrounds with a lot of geographic and thematic interests. Something that’s been really cool has been being able to interact with people who want to go into the policy world, want to work in development, want to work for the U.S. government and people who want to go into academia — and they all are able to interact and exchange ideas. 

Interview by Emma Hinchliffe