American University of Sharjah’s (AUS) Discover Engineering campaign, a project organized by the AUS College of Engineering (CEN), has been shortlisted for the Times Higher Education (THE) Awards for the Middle East and North Africa.
The campaign, which aims to engage and inspire school students to pursue careers in technology and engineering, is vying for the Student Recruitment Campaign of the Year Award. To be hosted in UAE’s Khalifa University in November 2023, the first edition of THE Awards for the Middle East and North Africa focuses primarily on activities during the 2022 calendar year.
CEN’s Discover Engineering campaign kicked off in Fall 2022 with 42 activities that involved 1,800 students of which female representation comprised 50 percent from more than 100 schools in the UAE, and who were selected through a vigorous process out of 3,800 applicants. The campaign included a series of bootcamps, workshops, competitions, pre-university enrichment visits, the CEN Shadow Program, Engineering Open Day and High School Counselors Day.
“Discover Engineering is a key part of CEN’s community outreach activities. We believe that our impact starts with students while they are still at school. The campaign is our way of nurturing young minds, opening doors to young talents and actively participating in the UAE’s innovation strategy,” said Dr. Fadi Aloul, Dean of CEN.
He added: “We work with students in grades eight to 12 from various UAE schools because we want to be as diverse and as inclusive as possible. We also know from our research that new generations are no longer excited by a mere visit to a university campus, which is why we sought to offer them a holistic AUS experience through our Discover Engineering activities. Students engage with our faculty, utilize labs and conduct experiments, attend classes, interact with our students, visit AUS’ facilities, explore innovation on campus, and experience university life.”
Held during school holidays and on weekends, Discover Engineering’s free-of-charge activities offer students a variety of opportunities to learn about CEN’s programs in chemical and biological engineering, mechanical engineering, computer science and engineering, industrial engineering, civil engineering and electrical engineering.
“Each of our six departments holds its own boot camp where students learn about a variety of fields of study and get to experiment in our labs. During these camps, students are introduced to many of the college’s state-of-the-art labs. Workshops focus on topics such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and other specialized areas. Competitions encourage school students to think outside the box, be problem-solvers, develop their soft skills, work in teams and innovate. Meanwhile, the Shadow Program pairs high school students with one of CEN’s trained final-year students for a day and attend classes with them, visit university facilities, speak to our faculty and experience what being a university student is like. We also work closely with the AUS Office of Enrollment Management to organize enrichment visits and tours around our college and AUS campus,” explained Dr. Aloul.
The CEN Shadow Program for the Academic Year 2022-2023 saw the participation of 58 students, including 35 students in grade 12 out of which 17 joined CEN in Fall 2023. Youser Ahmad, a grade 12 student at Sharjah American International School, is one of the school students who joined the program and is joining AUS this fall semester.
“I got to attend a senior engineering class, which was fun and interesting. I also visited the university’s buildings and saw its modern facilities. Everyone in the university was very welcoming and friendly. Overall, the CEN Shadow Program was an amazing experience that allowed me to live a day as an engineering student and experience life at AUS,” said Ahmad.
Student Abedalrahman Mirza from International School of Choueifat, Dubai Investment Park, attended the Industrial Engineering Boot Camp held in May 2023. He said, “Attending the industrial engineering boot camp was instrumental in deciding whether this is a field that is fit for me or not. I am now aware of the different elements that constitute what industrial engineering is. Equipped with this knowledge, I can now make an informed decision regarding pursuing it further.”
CEN surveys participating school students at the end of each activity to get their feedback. It also keeps close contact with them, a tradition it has followed since it introduced its AUS Computing Camp in 2017.
“Prior to the launch of the Discover Engineering campaign in Fall 2022, the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) in CEN used to hold computing boot camps for school students to immerse them in the field and give them a deeper understanding of its potential impact in today’s digital era. This initiative was so successful that we were easily able to apply it in the college’s departments as part of Discover Engineering. We were able to see first-hand the impact of our computer science and engineering camps when school students enrolled in our CSE programs. Since Discover Engineering started in Fall 2022, we look forward to seeing the fruits of our efforts soon,” said Dr. Aloul.
While still a school student in 2021, Lodan Mohamed Elmugamer, now a third-year computer science major with a double minor in data science and biology at AUS, attended an AUS computing boot camp.
“During COVID, I found out about the AUS Computing Camp, and it was a wonderful opportunity to learn more about the university and the world of computing. Since I learned so much in a few days and had a blast, I became more inclined to study either computer science or computer engineering. The wide range of opportunities computer science opens are immense and since I initially wanted to contribute to the medical field, I knew that I could do that through computer science. That’s why I’m currently doing a double minor in data science and biology to gradually get into bioinformatics,” said Elmugamer.
AUS is among the top 175 universities in emerging economies (2022) and among the top five universities with the highest percentage of international students (2023), according to THE World University Rankings.
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