CMU-Q graduating students aim to serve the community

Doha: Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q), a Qatar Foundation (QF) partner university will celebrate graduates in the Class of 2021 today. Since the pandemic this will be the first traditional, in-person ceremony. The graduating students shared their campus life experience and aspiration for the future. 

Al Reem Al Khanji graduating from the Biological Sciences programme described campus life experience as ‘rollercoaster’ and said  the welcoming CMU-Q community encouraged to ask questions and helped her become  well-versed in several topics.   

“During the past four years at CMU-Q, I had the incredible opportunity to explore many specialties within the biological sciences field. And what drew me the most were biomedicine and genetic counselling. I believe that there is so much room for growth in Qatar in those fields, therefore I intend on continuing with my academic journey and pursue the path of biomedicine or genetic counselling in graduate school,” she said. 

“In the past few years, Qatar has shown a great exponential growth in the research and health fields and I believe that it can become a global hub for biomedical research,” she added.  

Noora Al Saeed who will be graduating from Information Systems initially started her journey at CMU-Q as a Biological Sciences student  but later found her passion in programming. 

“My journey at CMU-Q was a tough journey but it was amazing and totally worth it,” she said. 

At present Noora is sponsored by the Ministry of Defence, however in the future she is keen to  explore her teaching skills by joining Teach For Qatar, and then hopes to pursue her studies in Information Systems and CyberSecurity. 

“I can use my programming skills and my little knowledge of cybersecurity in my future job in Ministry of Defence. I know this topic is very crucial, especially here in Qatar, and I plan to use my knowledge to help the country develop and hopefully reach the Qatar National Vision 2030,” Noora  said.  

Another graduating student from Information Systems Mohammed Al Qassabi aspires to begin his own start-up. 

“I am grateful to all of the opportunities and resources we have at QF and CMU, and I think it is important for us to contribute back to our country,” he said.