Middle Eastern Studies (MA)

Career preparation

After giving you the necessary competences and developing your knowledge, Leiden University can offer you all the help you’ll need to find the job of your dreams or a position that is a perfect fit with your skill set and personality.

Relevant professional skills and experience

The Middle Eastern Studies programme will help you make a clear difference in your chosen career. It will introduce you to the conceptual and academic approaches at play in the region, such as linguistics, history, anthropology and political science. Furthermore, developing your in-depth knowledge in the field and giving you the ability to think critically and analytically are also key goals of the programme.

Monica Lam

Student Middle Eastern Studies

“As an extra-curricular course, I did a 6-month internship at the European Migration Network (EMN) which is part of the Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service. The EMN plays a key role in providing up-to-date, objective, reliable and comparable information on migration and asylum topics to policy makers and the general public. Being a History graduate, this internship combined my historical knowledge of European issues with my specific interest in the Middle East. As part of my internship assignment I researched the civic integration policies in relation to refugees of EU Member States. This assignment was published on the EMN website. To my surprise, this research was also picked up by De Volkskrant and they wrote an article about civic integration policies in The Netherlands.”

Humanities Career Service

Our staff can help you identify both the career that is right for you, and the necessary steps to get you there. Our team at Humanities Career Service provide all Leiden University humanities students with professional advice and guidance on everything from internships and career planning to job applications. Humanities Career Service also organises regular workshops on topics such as effective interview skills and creating a successful CV.

Online Career Week

The first Online Career Week was organised in May 2020. Every day there were 2 events that students could sign up for.

For example, there was a Q&A with interns. Three interns working for respectively Philips, the Dutch Mission to the UN, and the World Economic Forum provided the participants with information on their internships, the application processes and working from home. In addition, a live webinar CV writing took place, and students were able to schedule an appointment with a career counselor for personal advice.