sometimes pursued a career in social work. A third daughter was born once the family was in America. Habib learned English at school, but her family insisted that she be raised with Egyptian culture and language, hence, she is fluent in Arabic. Of her parents' actions, she later said, "I so desperately wanted a turkey and cheese sandwich with potato chips, and instead I always got grape leaves and hummus and falafel, not even in a cool brown paper bag. And now, of course, I appreciate so much that I did." Each of the family members born abroad became a naturalized citizen of the United States. She attended the prep school for girls Ursuline Academy of Dallas, from which she was graduated in 1991. She then attended the University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts where she enrolled in the Plan I Honors program. She performed community service as part of her program and joined the Delta Delta Delta sorority. Habib helped pay for school by working as a legislative assistant for two Republican members of the Texas State Senate: Ike Harris and Jerry E. Patterson. With them, she worked on a number of policy matters, including juvenile justice reform. Her family strongly identified with the Republican Party and greatly admired Ronald Reagan. She adopted the same views, later recalling that "... when I started to work with Republicans I realised that I agree with the views of personal empowerment, of less government involvement, of having the ability to talk about things without the government necessarily being involved. And on the economic side I'm definitely a believer that people should spend more of their money and spend it the way they think so and invest it wisely." For her honors thesis, she wrote about the value of mentoring juvenile delinquents. She graduated from the University of Texas with honors with a bachelor's degree in Humanities from its College of Liberal Arts in 1995. Early political career Habib had applied to, and had been accepted by, a law school. However, in part due to her Arabic fluency, she received an offer of a year-long internship with the U.S. Senator from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison. She deferred the school and accepted the internship, moving to Washington, D.C. in the process. She never returned to law school. After the year-long internship concluded, she took a job with Dick Armey, the Republican