ABU DHABI // The fifth batch of Sheikh Mohammed Scholars are about to embark on a life-changing experience, previous students of the programme say.
Each year up to 20 students from each of the UAE's three federal universities are put through a year-long course in US politics at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), which includes a 10-day trip to New York.
Each of the three institutions - Zayed University, the Higher Colleges of Technology and UAE University - nominate students in their third or final year of studies. This year, 24 have been chosen.
The two courses, on US foreign policy and the relationship of religion and state in American politics, aim to widen the students' perspectives, develop critical thinking and promote debate.
That kind of openness can be lacking in universities here, says Aisha Al Hashemi, an English education student at Zayed University who won a scholarship in 2010.
"I was missing this throughout my educational experience - to be able to say what I think out loud and feel good about it," said Ms Al Hashemi, 24, who now works in community outreach at NYUAD.
She and her fellow Zayed University student and Sheikh Mohammed Scholar, Aisha Al Marzooqi, chose to study the relationship between religion and politics as seen through US supreme court rulings.
"I learnt that there is so much more to this," said Ms Al Marzooqi, who now works for the Abu Dhabi Executive Council.
"It was nice to be able to just study one course for the whole year and go so deeply into it, unlike at university where we do a course for 20 weeks.
"I thought things were just black and white, but there are so many colours in between and we learnt to accept different views just because of looking at a country with such diverse ideas and opinions."
In New York, the students debated issues such as the Israel-Palestine situation with students from many religious and ethnic backgrounds, a world away from their exclusively Emirati classrooms at home.
"It was a whole new perspective and I learnt not to judge a book by its cover," Ms Al Marzooqi said. "You just start listening to people.
"In [Zayed] university nearly everyone would have the same opinion, but then suddenly in NYU everyone had a different opinion and you have to accept their ideas."
Nouf Al Mubarak, 23, took the course last year.
"It was a great platform to have debates," Ms Al Mubarak said. "This really helps us grow and understand an issue from another perspective."
Now a researcher at the National Centre for Documentation and Research, she chose foreign policy to back up her international studies degree.
"In the Arab world, the media depicts US foreign policy in a very critical way, so part of the course was to show what kind of theories and thinking went behind the US devising those foreign policies, which people here in the media don't know much about," Ms Al Mubarak said.
"We see the results of that foreign policy but we don't see the theories behind them. It was an eye-opener as there is so much planning that people here just don't understand."
Ms Al Mubarak said the programme helped her to become more critical and analytical in her studies at Zayed University.
"I learnt to read a text and detect the biases," she said.
Ms Al Hashemi said the seeds sown in that year had changed the students for life.
"We debate even the smallest things now. Even something on TV we can talk about for an hour," she said. "You realise that having people arguing with you is what you have been missing, it's what you want. It was just as valuable as the classes."
Ms Al Marzooqi agreed: "Nothing becomes simple after that."
