By: Clement Goujon
Ammar Mohrat is an alumni of Saint Leo University. He graduated in Spring 2017 with a degree in computer science and a GPA 3.7. Recently, Mohrat was selected to talk for the well-known platform TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design).
TED, a media nonprofit organization founded in 1984, posts talks online available for free under the slogan “ideas worth spreading.” At the start, the talks were produced annually and the topics of the topics were focused on technology and design, consistent with its Silicon Valley origins. Now, many kind of topics are available on their website, such as scientific, cultural and academic. The conferences take place in many cities in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. The time for a speaker to talk is roughly 10 to 18 minutes.
Mohrat was selected to talk with 12 other speakers for TEDxOrlando; his speech was held at Full Saint in Orlando on Oct 27. Being chosen to speak is a highly selective process; a speaker needs to be a good orator and to have a good story or a good knowledge to speak about. Mohrat didn’t think about doing a TED talk but the organizer asked him if he was interested to share his story.
“The organizer is a TKE brother who graduated from UCF; he asked me if I am interested in sharing my story and the story of millions of refugees in TED platform,” Mohrat said. “I sent my Talk outline, and then it was reviewed and chosen.”
When Mohrat was in Syria he was an activist. He joined pro-democratic protests despite leader Bashar al-Assad arresting and killing protestors. One of the victims was his best friend, who was shot by a sniper and lay dying beside him, according to the Tampa Bay Times. @AmmarMohrat
The preparation for a TED talk is pretty intense; the experts of TED advise to spend one hour of work for one minute of speaking. The speaker has to write his speech and to memorize it perfectly. Three weeks before the TEDx, Mohrat said that his preparation was going pretty well; at that point, he finished writing the outline and most of content, and he was just working on shaping and memorizing his speech what he has to a TEDx. Because the talk needed to be perfect and it was a huge quantity of work, Mohrat received the help from two mentors: one was in Orlando and one was Australia.
Being selected for TED is a great honor because majority of the speaker request every day, but just a few are selected. Although Mohrat is excited for this opportunity; three weeks before the TEDx, he was still a little stressed because he is anxious with public speaking. Nevertheless, it was not his first experience as a speaker; indeed, he was the commencement speaker at the graduation ceremony in Spring 2017; that is why he is pretty confident about overcoming this stress.
“Before giving the commencement speech at Saint Leo I was afraid of public speaking,” said Mohrat. “But that experience in the graduation ceremony showed me that I can be really good at speaking in front of a lot of people. I am sure I will overcome it.”
Mohrat seems to be a perfect candidate because of his story. He was born and raised in Homs, a city in Syria of about 780,000 inhabitants. His story in the United States began when he was 20 years old.
“When I was 20 years old; I had to flee my homeland and become a refugee to escape assassination or worse: imprisonment or torture by brutal dictatorship,” said Mohrat. “I came to Saint Leo in Fall 2013; I was 22 years old. I was lucky to be selected as one of the two Syrian students who were offered full scholarship from Saint Leo.”
Mohrat encountered many obstacles as an international student when he came in the US. The main obstacle was a language barrier; since he didn’t speak English it was hard for him to socialize with the others, and it really affected his self-confidence.
“I did not speak English very well, and I always felt shy speaking with native speakers,” said Mohrat. “You know; it’s not easy making friends with Americans if you don’t speak the tongue.”
However, Mohrat worked hard, learnt English and finally, he is well integrated in the United States.
Being the Commencement speaker for his graduation was the fruition of his adjustment into American; when he came, he didn’t speak English and 4 years after he became the commencement speaker. It was a great honor for him and also something that he wanted to do since he was Freshman.
Mohrat was thankful for the opportunity to share his story. @OSV
“Since I was Freshman, I was planning to be the commencement speaker; I knew it wouldn’t be easy. It started when my friends nominated me for it. And then, I had to compete 7 or 8 other classmate,” said Mohrat. “I remember, I got to the finalist with other 3 girls, and we were all part of Greek life, so that was kind of hard because all of them were active on campus and had good stories. I was honored when most of my class chose me to represent them on their best day.”
It is a great experience that anyone never forget. The video of the speech can be view on YouTube. It was selected in the top 8 speeches in the states for the year of 2017 by the website “The Nation”.
Despite having being selected as a commencement speaker, being honored with top 8 speeches, having a degree and a high GPA, Mohrat still found it difficult to find a job after college. Due to this, Mohrat had some issues with his first after college. He got his job right after graduation, but because of immigration status, he had to quit his job. Nevertheless, he works at FairWarning technologies a computer software in ClearWater and he works for Microsoft as well.
The capacities of Mohrat to adapt to everything, to socialize and to work hard permits to him to be very successful. When he came in the United States he didn’t speak English, but he was able to learn, to integrate a fraternity where he is the only foreign student, he was able to be selected as the commencement speaker at Saint Leo University, to graduate with a good GPA and finally to be selected for a TED talk. His story is very interesting and he overcame every obstacle; that’s probably why he was selected for this prestigious experience.
