On Sunday, 15 January a workshop on student employability was organized by the University. The event was great and well received by the 60+ who attended it. It was really pleasing to see the Dome Room buzzing with staff, external partners and most importantly our students who were passionate about contributing to the workshop.

The workshop started with Prof Waheeb’s speech that set the scene for the event. This was followed by a presentation by the President on our University’s strategy. Prof Saad then presented our students employability strategy focusing on internal issues like internships, curriculum design, incubation, soft skills, etc. Dr Faiza then presented our Graduate Attributes taking into account internal and external factors. The final presentation was by Dr Assem who presented market needs focusing on external factors like HEC guidelines, vision 2030, and international opportunities.

The workshop was run using a brainstorming approach to generate new and innovative ideas that can help our students to become more employable.

The results of the workshop will help our students and will be well received by the accreditation panel when they visit us. We intend to run this workshop again involving all staff and some selected students.

I am grateful to Prof Waheeb for an inspiring opening speech setting the scene for the workshop. I am also grateful to Ms Tania for the excellent preparation and organizing of the event. The presentations by Prof Saad, Dr Faiza and Dr Assem were inspiring and useful; I felt that I was attending a workshop in the UK.

Prof Saad working closely with Dr Assem, Dr Faiza and Ms Tania will produce a report which will help us immensely during the accreditation visit. Many thanks are due to Ms Hadeel for doing all the data entry following the workshop. Many thanks to Mr Mohamed Alnajjar, Ms Noora and Mr Thaer from the Deanship of Students Affairs for their contributions during the workshop. Many thanks are also due to Mr Bahaa for his help with the media people recognition and to Hamid and Mustafa from PR with helping with the registration and other logistical issues. Last but not least, I would like to thank Mr Abdulla and Mr Majed for helping us with the gifts, dinner, and other logistical issues.

????????????????????????????????????

????????????????????????????????????