TFAS alumni seem to run into one another in all walks of life. This “It’s a TFAS World” phenomenon continues to happen between various alumni all around the world.
Recently, Anna Chorniy (AIPES 07, EMJI 08) from Russia shared her own story of when she realized that Wesley Harris (ICEPES 07), her fellow first year Ph.D. classmate at Clemson University, was also a TFAS alumnus!
As Anna tells it, “I was on the phone talking to my younger brother, who was about to have a phone interview for AIPES. He understands and speaks English fine but he gets pretty nervous during interviews. I was trying to ‘coach’ him by asking questions about his degree, interests, etc.
I was in our graduate students’ office at the moment and it occurred to me that interview questions for my brother would be much better coming from one of my classmates rather than me. So I started convincing my classmates who were in the office to talk to my brother. Eventually somebody asked me what the interview was for and I told him it was for TFAS, to which he revealed he was also an alumnus!”
Wesley told Anna that he too had participated in a TFAS program – he was a member of the ICPES class of 2007 in Washington. They shared stories about each of their experiences with TFAS and now realize that even though they participated in programs countries apart from each other that they each share a common bond of being alumni of The Fund for American Studies.
Anna and Wesley are both students in the Ph.D. economics program at Clemson.
Do you have a similar story? Send it to alumni@TFAS.org.