Laila Ujayli has been busy the past few years. She graduated summa cum laude from The Ohio State University in 2018, with majors in English and international relations along with minors in screenwriting and business; earned two master’s degrees from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar; and started her first year at Harvard Law School. Now, she’ll be adding the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans to her list of accolades and achievements.

The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans is a $90,000 merit-based fellowship exclusively for immigrants and children of immigrants who are pursuing graduate school in the United States. The Fellowship opens doors for recipients, both by easing the financial burden of graduate school and by providing Fellows with a strong sense of community. Nikka Landau, the director of communications and strategic initiatives for the Fellowship, is passionate about the program’s multifaceted benefits. The financial assistance, she notes, can help Fellows take risks and pursue opportunities that would otherwise be unavailable to them. And, even more special, she says, the Fellowship “really confirms for people they are on the right path. When you’re pursuing your dream, it’s really helpful to know that other people are behind you, and really right there with you; the Fellowship gives people a community of other people who are in graduate school in all different fields, all over the country, who are all New Americans." Ujayli echoed this sentiment, saying that “what’s really special about this Fellowship is it’s for immigrants and children of immigrants, so it’s such an amazing community that represents the best of American diversity and really shows…across all these different disciplines what first- and second-generation Americans are doing.” Furthermore, the program itself fosters a strong sense of community among Fellows, past and present, from the personal phone call that Daisy Soros makes to each Fellow to let them know they’re accepted, to the fall conferences that Fellows attend, to the many ways that Fellowship alumni reach out to current Fellows to offer congratulations and insight.

Ujayli exemplifies the exceptional cross-disciplinary work that PD Soros Fellows engage in. She is passionate about human rights advocacy, and, while she sees the law as one avenue to advance that cause, it is not the only tool she finds valuable. During our conversation, she pointed out that while she can happily spend a Friday night poring over legal briefs and policy reports, that kind of dense reading may not be for everyone—sometimes, you just want to take an evening and watch a movie. Enter one of Ujayli’s other passions: screenwriting, which she fell in love with while taking a class with Professor Angus Fletcher. While she acknowledges that organizing and policy work are important, she sees the screenwriting element of her work as equally vital, noting the significance of “making sure that the stories we tell about people in entertainment and media are…representing people fully and representing people’s experiences fully.” And Ujayli is not just hypothesizing about the value of this kind of representation—she’s actually making it happen, along with her sister, Zaina. The pair are collaborating on several projects, from dramatic feature-length screenplays to genre work with broad audience appeal. One of their joint ventures, titled Four Floors in Raqqa, is based on a true story, in which a headstrong woman braves bombs and execution in ISIS-occupied Raqqa to protect her neighborhood and the home she built with her siblings. The screen play has not been produced yet, but it has already received numerous accolades, including the 2021 Joint Feature Fellowship from CineStory Foundation. This kind of creativity and multi-pronged, innovative approach to social change is a quality that the PD Soros Fellowship seeks out in applicants. Director Craig Harwood says, “Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows all come to their work with deep creativity, a pointed perspective, a proven track record of taking meaningful and smart risks, and a sense of purpose—they want to give back through their work.”

While her English major is obviously a boon to her screenwriting, Ujayli notes that the major is also helpful in law school. She points out that narrative is incredibly important in the law, and that the major gave her the critical tools she needs to deftly analyze legal texts. Ujayli draws a parallel between the legal opinions she now reads and the books she read in English courses at Ohio State: “Judges are making analogies and references to other cases that existed before…It was just really surprising to me how much…engaging with the text of the law feels like engaging with a literary text, and trying to decode the symbolism…[Justices] are referring to other justices, like an author might refer to another author.” And the English major does not just help in reading and decoding legal texts. Although writing for the law can feel somewhat formulaic, it still requires knowing how to write for different audiences and formats, skills that Ujayli honed in her English courses.

Given the crossover that she sees between English and the legal field, it is no surprise that Ujayli feels strongly that English majors belong at law school. She points to the versatility of the major, noting that it can be applied to many fields of study and that “it’s not one thing, and I think that’s what you need for law school.” And while the foundational skills of close reading and clear writing are important for the law, these are not the only transferable elements of the English major: Ujayli notes that many English courses also bring in politics and sociology, which naturally come up frequently in law.

When asked what advice she would give English majors, Ujayli offered insight for those hoping to pursue law school, along with some tips for any English major, regardless of their post-graduation plans. For those interested in the legal field, Ujayli recommends being interdisciplinary, being able to move between different modes of thinking and different styles. So, she says, “take the creative writing class, take the modernist literature class, take…the different global literature options…Having the ability to read different types of texts, especially dense ones, and absorb them, [is] just going to cultivate good skills.” However, she also notes that law school will inevitably be a different experience than undergraduate work. No one person is more prepared than anyone else when they’re thrown into the whirlwind of their first year, so she recommends that students take courses that they’re passionate about, because “what matters is that you…cultivate good relationships....you’re passionate about the work, and you build a portfolio that you are excited about.”

To all majors, regardless of whether they’re interested in the law, Ujayli says, “Apply for everything.” When she began her undergraduate studies at Ohio State, her plan was to graduate and go directly to law school. Instead, she worked for a year, then applied for a Rhodes Scholarship, which led her to complete two master’s degrees at Oxford. She encourages students to “be willing to walk through whatever doors open and don’t put yourself on a really set timeline.” She also encourages students to apply for all opportunities open to them, even and especially if they feel out of reach. As she said, “These fellowships and opportunities are not just for…people who go to Ivy League schools. They’re for everybody.” That, after all, is how she ended up as a PD Soros Fellow—even though Ujayli was intimidated by the impressive bios of past Fellows, she still applied, a process she says she enjoyed, since the essay prompts gave great opportunity for self-reflection. And she encourages all her fellow Buckeyes to engage in these kinds of applications and self-reflection. After all, she says, “It’s going to be great to see more Buckeyes…in this space and…in these fellowships, because it’s a great school. And there should be more of us taking over the world.”

By Elizabeth Falter