Taking a Pass on Assessment Grades for a Career Focused Tour of the Middle East

The Middle East Study Tour (MEST) is a capstone elective unit that stands alone as a credit module towards an undergraduate degree. The tour has the dual purposes of exposing students to the Middle East region's political challenges and better illuminating potential career paths for life after university. But is one student's personal discovery (or their ability to express it in writing) more valuable than another's? Attaching a numerical grade to such endeavours would seem to indicate that. For this reason the MEST uses an 'Ungraded Pass' approach to the assessments. That is, the students pass the assignments (and the module) by submitting their work, but without any score being awarded. This article explains the mechanisms the MEST uses for assessment and how this aligns with the goal of the program to expose students to the real world of political struggles and career development.

Russian -Turkish relations and current international alliances in the Middle East "Study on the effect and Impact"

International relations are affected by the interests that may be achieved by States or if those interests are harmed as a result of internal and external factors that are exposed to this or that state. The bilateral international relations are also affected by the alliances to which one or both sides of the relationship is involved. A set of geopolitical, economic, security and ideological interests negatively and positively. Such relations were also affected by the policy of axes and international alliances, which have long been joined by the two countries to contradictory alliances that have strained their relations. Turkey is a member of the four-party alliance and Turkey is a member of the Islamic alliance and then of the international coalition to fight the oppressive organization and the terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria. Each of these alliances has its objectives and members whose views differ from those of other member states, Hence, the impact on relations between Russia and Turkey was clear.