This spring Wazhma Sadat graduated from Yale University with a bachelor’s degree in global affairs. Sadat traveled 6,667 miles from her home to attend Yale. She is the first woman from Afghanistan to graduate from Yale in the university’s 313-year history.
Sadat was five years old when the Taliban gained political control in Afghanistan. Her family fled to Pakistan so she and her sisters could continue to go to school. At age 8, Sadat began to weave carpets to help support her family. When the Taliban fell from power in 2001, the family returned to Kabul.
In 2006 Sadat came to the United States under the State Department’s Youth Exchange and Study program. She attended a public high school in Florida. She returned to Afghanistan to finish high school and then took a job with the American Council for International Education (ACIE). A Yale alumnus worked for the ACIE and convinced her to consider applying to Yale.
Sadat has returned to Afghanistan and in the spring will study Arabic, the Quran, and Sharia law in Jordan. She then hopes to attend law school.