Foundations Newsletter

Every year, Level 4 Foundations students participate in an event to give them as much relevant information as possible to help them make one of the most important decisions in their lives.  Athija Mujairdi successfully organized our Programme Choice Day at DWC.

Students gathered in the MPH, and the Business Faculty kicked things off with Program Chair Basma Al Ammari giving a very engaging talk on the various aspects of the Business Major, involving students by concept checking like a good teacher does: “Logistics, what does this mean?  I can tell you the Arabic, but it won’t help you much…”  “Accredited, what does this mean?  Why is it important?”  She started off the theme of HCT-specific examples, asking who came up with the Dubai Shopping Festival (an HCT business graduate, now in charge of the entire thing).

Engineering followed with a talk focusing on the job opportunities for Emirati engineers, and what is necessary for engineering.  Anecdotally, there is an increase in the number of women interested in engineering, as every semester I have more and more students asking about it.

John Price followed by showing how important Emirates Air is to the UAE and described the vast opportunities available to students interested in the Aviation programme, even outside the aviation industry (graduates in the UAE are needed to help with the development of nuclear power, for example).

The Education Faculty had previously primed our students by visiting our classrooms, and now with all the students together, they explained that without education, there are no engineers, no aviation mechanics, nothing.   “You will remember your teachers for the rest of your lives”, they said.  They described each year of their programme, and brought in some of their current students to give one sentence about what they liked about Education (two mentioned on the side that “there are no exams”, which seemed to be a high selling point).

Next, Alistair Simpson from Health Sciences told students about the qualities of a good medical imaging student in a succinct manner, and finished by showing an x-ray of a man who had fallen off a building and been impaled by a metal rod.  He lived, by the way, in part thanks to medical imaging.

Paramedics Noura Al Khayal & Reon Conning then came on to show a video of how this major can also help save lives.  The paramedics in their video were HCT graduates, continuing on with that theme.

Applied Communications faculty Ahlam Al Bannai showed what students would be capable of with a short suspense movie made by her own Applied Communications students.  The film impressed our Level 4 students, who, as I looked around, couldn’t stop watching.

IT presented at the end of this 2-hour session, and their presentation showed students numerous shots of the various field trips to Japan, China, Indonesia, and many other places in a very energetic and multi-media oriented presentation, jumping quickly back and forth between speakers.

When the presentations concluded, students had a chance to visit the various program chairs, teachers, and former students to ask more specific questions.  My students who had previously “no idea” about what they would choose were then asking me how to spell “engineering”, “aviation”, and other relevant vocabulary words.

What impressed me was the variety of media in each presentation – videos, pictures, Prezi, PowerPoint, and the large range of presenters even within each department:  former students, graduates, teachers, and chairs.  What I hope impressed the students was the number of HCT specific examples each department was able to use to promote their department, as a way of illustrating the vast opportunities available to them.