The first time Anisë Murseli BF ’25 left the Balkans was in the fall of 2020, when she moved to New Haven to begin her Yale education.
 
“I knew it would be a culture shock, but coming to study at Yale was too incredible an opportunity to pass up, since this is a better education than I could possibly receive back home,” Murseli says.

Originally intending to study mathematics, the Kosovo native ended up falling in love with philosophy thanks to Yale’s liberal arts curriculum.
 
“The liberal arts system is completely different from European education systems, and it was so valuable in exposing me to different fields of study,” Murseli says. “I’ve always loved mathematics, but I found that philosophy is quite close to it in so far as it draws heavily on tools from formal logic and also shares some methodological similarities in the way it approaches problem-solving while being more adjacent to issues that people face in their day-to-day lives. The way I think of it, philosophy is to humanities and our ordinary practical problems what mathematics is to the sciences. With my philosophy education, I hope to contribute to Kosovo’s state consolidation project.”

The nation of Kosovo declared its independence in 2008, so the governmental and societal foundations of the state are all relatively new and still in flux.
 
Last year, Murseli took a gap year supported by the Thomas C. Barry Travel Fellowship, which supports Yale College students pursuing independent projects in emerging markets and disenfranchised communities around the world.
 
“After two years studying at Yale, I wanted to go back to Kosovo and learn more about what is happening in my home country,” Murseli says. “We are such a new country, and I wanted to see firsthand how our economic and political institutions were developing.”
 
In Kosovo, Murseli completed research projects within Kosovo’s central bank and office of the president. The experience was invaluable, she says, and cemented her decision to return to Kosovo after graduation.
 
“I’ve always felt a moral obligation to return to my home country and give back,” Murseli says. “I want to take what I’ve learned at Yale and use it to help in our state building process, so more people than just me can benefit.”

While moving to the other side of the world was undoubtedly a daunting choice, Murseli has no regrets, having found community at Yale through the Yale Political Union, the Peace and Dialogue Leadership Initiative, and the European Studies Council.

“Coming to Yale is the most transformative step I will ever take in my life,” Murseli says. “I don't think I'll ever have an experience that's going to be as life-changing as this one. Maybe if I go to Mars. But apart from that, I can’t imagine any experience teaching me more about myself and my place in the world.”