Researching the Middle East with Colin Tait
By Bill Brink
When Colin Tait enrolled in Carnegie Mellon’s BXA Intercollege Degree Program, he had to study a language. One of his earliest friends on campus posed him a question that, in a way, started him along his career path.
“She asked me, ‘Why do I speak English?’” Tait said. “‘I speak your language, but you don’t speak mine [Arabic].’ I was like, OK, that’s a challenge.”
Tait fell in love with the economic, social, and cultural aspects of the Middle East. Before long he was studying Arabic for two months in Jordan, living with a Lebanese family as the only non-Arab in the neighborhood. Now Tait, who earned a Bachelor of Humanities and Arts in Bagpipe Performance and Ethics, History, and Public Policy, along with minors in International Relations and Politics and Arabic Studies, in 2018, and an MS in International Relations and Politics in 2019, is a Program Associate at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC.
Music first attracted Tait to Carnegie Mellon. He is a first-generation college student and bagpipe player, and .
“I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life when I was 18 years old, which is, I feel like, a reasonable thing for most people,” Tait said. “For my first year, my freshman year, I was a bagpipe major, and then I switched to the BXA program.”
Tait took Grand Strategy in the United States with Professor Colin Clarke and loved it. In his spare time, he began reading more about political science, and he took more classes on the subject.
Tait’s housemate, Borge Feliz, was a fourth-year student in the Accelerated Master of Science in International Relations and Politics, and he frequently sang its praises to Tait. After looking into it, Tait decided it was the right step to take. While in the program, Tait conducted research and qualitative field work in Colombia and Northern Ireland.
“It was amazing,” he said. “Northern Ireland, I went with a class, Art, Technology, and Conflict in Northern Ireland, so I was there doing stuff with them. But then I also did research for my thesis when we didn’t have any programming.”
After earning his master’s degree in 2019, Tait got a fall internship at the Middle East Institute as a research assistant. He researched the conflict in Syria, analyzing rule of law and levels of governance in non-regime-held areas of the country. After a at the at the conclusion of the internship, Tait got a full-time job at the Middle East Institute.
“I’m a program associate here, and so I propose, plan, and implement our public and private events,” he said. “I work with the scholars as well as come up with my own ideas. I manage four interns, which is odd for me because they’re all my age.”
Eventually, Tait would like to work in peace processes and conflict stabilization. He credited Carnegie Mellon with providing the requisite depth of knowledge for him to enter the workforce ready to contribute.
“I have no idea where I’d be in the world right now without Carnegie Mellon,” Tait said. “It was very impactful on my life, and I think most importantly, it’s the faculty that work there. I became very close with, in particular, Ignacio Arana and Colin Clarke. All the faculty and professors, they actually care about the students and work with you on what you’re interested in, so you can kind of cater whatever you want to do with the program.”