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Cougar Queries: "My advice to freshmen: drink deeply from the entire experience"

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Name: Kirk Belnap

BYU employee since: 1988

My job at BYU is: Professor of Arabic

Currently I?m working on? Project Perseverance with a great team of colleagues from four departments at BYU and elsewhere. For students this means training to help them become more effective self-regulating learners.

I?m currently reading? Dörnyei and Kubanyiova's Motivating Learners, Motivating Teachers: Building Vision in the Language Classroom.

I get most excited about my work when? students catch fire and begin to believe in themselves.

My advice to incoming freshman is? the same as my son's advice to his little sister: "Find something to love in every class." And I would add: drink deeply from the total experience: devotionals, lectures, service opportunities, the arts, intramural sports.

My favorite BYU tradition is? weekly devotionals and forums and watching my daughters play intramural basketball together.

My favorite spot on campus is? the Joseph F. Smith Building, especially standing in the alcove on the fourth floor in front of Brian Kershisnik's Nativity.

On Saturday mornings you?ll find me? running along the Provo River to Utah Lake.

Kirk Belnap
Photo by BYU Photo

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