On 11 December 2017, more than 200 secondary schools pupils from 8 private schools in Bahrain attended our Open Day: Plan your Major that was organized by the Marketing and Students Recruitment Group chaired by Dr Mohamed Yousif with great help from Marketing and Public Affairs, International Partnerships, and Students Council as part of a marketing campaign to recruit students for the second semester of this Academic Year and the first semester of the Academic Year 2018/2019. The event was introduced by Mr Ruqaya and started with a short presentation by the President who gave an overview of ASU and its colleges. This was followed by a video about the University and its facilities. Ms Catherine Hogan, Acting Head of Governance, Strategic Planning & International Partnerships gave a summary about our British Programmes and why students should join these programmes. This was followed by presentations by Dr Nympha Joseph, Programme Coordinator, Accounting and Finance & Dr Marwan Abdeldayem, Programme Coordinator, Management and Business Studies, and Dr Ashraf Hendy, Acting Dean of the College of Engineering, followed by a panel discussion with good contributions from Dr Assem and concluded by a tour of the University and a light lunch.

Various questions were raised by some attendees of the Open Day and this was compiled by Ms Catherine and included the following: ASU’s entry requirements, law degrees, medical degrees, scholarships or fee reductions, architecture degrees, cyber-security degrees, recommendation letters from school, how many years does a degree take, what professions/careers would be available after graduating from the Architectural Engineering degree, biochemistry or biomedical degrees, will an applicant with International Baccalaureate have to do the foundation year, what degrees does the College of Arts & Science have, why should someone choose ASU over all the other universities in Bahrain, quality of degrees in relation to other universities, chemical engineering degrees, will the mechanical engineering degree start soon, possibility of sponsorships from the relevant UK university for the British degrees, and graduates and their experiences for future events.

Feedback from the attendees has been collected and will be analyzed by Marketing and Public Affairs in order to learn lessons for future events.