As part of Habib University’s Liberal Arts curriculum and transnational approach to higher education, students from HU recently attended international universities including the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, University of Michigan, and Texas A&M for the Student Study Abroad summer program. Six HU students attended Stanford University, three went to UC Berkeley, one attended the University of Michigan, and one student went for a Summer Program at Texas A&M University.
Through this university Study Abroad experience, the students had the opportunity to attend some of the world’s top-ranked universities. They were able to participate in international conferences, conduct research, familiarize themselves with a foreign culture, and gain knowledge from a diverse perspective, helping to prepare them for graduate schools and future careers.
The program, facilitated by HU’s Office of Global Engagement, has an important role in the university experience of undergraduate students because it helps them thrive as critically engaged leaders in a global environment. It also allowed students to understand issues and challenges from an international perspective, where they will meet students from diverse backgrounds, and solve problems through a transdisciplinary approach.
Arsalan Ahmed, a BS Electrical Engineering student spent his summer semester at UC Berkeley, one of the world’s most prestigious universities. He said that his experience had been “phenomenal to say the least,” and that he was able to learn a great deal, both in and out of the classrooms, and was able to interact with professors and students from all over the world.
“I have taken two courses here. One is a Computer Science course called ‘Great Ideas in Computer Architecture’ which is related to architectural techniques used to build today’s high-performance processors and systems. I took this course because I feel that this course is a great overlap between Electrical Engineering and Computer Science,” he said.
Arsalan has already taken courses on digital logic design and microcontrollers at Habib University, which provided him with the knowledge and practice to cope up with a course that is considered hard even for Berkeley students.
The other course Arsalan took was on ‘Marine Mammals’ offered through the Department of Integrative Biology, which is related to the evolution, management and conservation of mammals. “I took this course because of my interest in marine life, and because it provided me with the opportunity to travel to different shores of the San Francisco Bay Area to see these wonderful animals in their habitat as part of the field trips,” he explained.
A similar exciting Study Abroad experience is that of Osama Yousuf, a BS Computer Science major at HU from the class of 2020, who spent his summer as a Research Intern at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University. Osama participated in collaborative research to establish a fully functioning code base that enables an autonomous vehicle to detect and follow a road lane in compliance with TxDOT regulations.
“The team I am working with consists of a mix of PhD and graduate students. The project scope is quite big and sub-teams are working on sub-projects in two domains – the first is a physical race-car and the second is a simulated version of it. I am leading the write-up and other work in the latter domain,” he said.
Osama emphasized that working on a project like this will serve as a dissertation for many students and that, “this could be a really good opportunity and can open doors for me in terms of graduate studies in the future.”
Programs such as Study Abroad, are part of Habib University’s commitment to providing students with a platform from which they can be involved in a truly international experience. By having the opportunity to learn at such prestigious institutes of higher education, HU students are able to thrive in an interconnected world. Experiences such as these will help students serve not only as ambassadors for their country but also foster within themselves an interdisciplinary approach to solving today’s global challenges.
