‘My Scholarship Experience’ initiative to be held on July 23

July 19: Omani Society in Queensland will launch the ‘My Scholarship Experience’ initiative in the Lounge Hall on Sultan Qaboos Street in Muscat on July 23.

The ‘ My Scholarship Experience 3’ initiative, in association with the Ministry of Higher Education, will shed light on studying abroad and its related challenges. Diploma graduates, those studying abroad and graduates from overseas universities will take part in the workshops.

The initiative will include field workshops and electronic open discussion forums on Twitter that targeted General Education Diploma students who will be studying in overseas accredited varsities. The social academic life abroad was also discussed on the social media.

Hilal al Riyami, information technology student at the University of Queensland and the head of Omani Society in Queensland, said the Omani Society in Queensland had held two similar sessions on this theme.

Titled ‘My Scholarship Experience’, it was an awareness workshop held in 2015, targeting matriculation students in the universities of 12 countries. The second initiative, titled ‘Abroad Youth Forum’, was held in January this year as part of the annual forum activities of Omani societies of Australia.

“After tasting success in two previous initiatives, we the were motivated to think on our third initiative, ‘My Scholarship Experience 3’,” said Hilal. “The focus is on General Education Diploma students. It will enable students to gain insights into academic life abroad and offer tips to improve academic performance.”

Talking about how the initiative was implemented, Marwan al Fakhri, a chemical engineering student at the University of Queensland and head of organising and communications committee of the initiative, said: “We began communicating with the Omani societies overseas. Later, topics were discussed in association with the media committee of the initiative and media department of the Higher Education Ministry.

A form for registering names of attendees who will study overseas and ones studying currently was prepared. The team is working on the initiative communicated through the social media to make the organising process easier as most members are from different cities of the Sultanate. There was active coordination with the high school teachers and educational supervision centres to ask students to participate in workshops implemented in the Lounge Hall,” Marwan said.

There was an extensive media cooperation and interaction on the initiative, according to Laith al Shiyadi, a medical student at the University of Queensland and media supervisor of the initiative. “We designed the announcement posters and posted them over social media platforms. We created a hashtag for the initiative to enable students to openly discuss studying overseas.” On the ongoing workshops, Hamed Harthi, a software engineering al student at Macquarie University and head of the implementation team of the initiative, said: “The initiative is divided into live field workshop sessions in the Lounge Hall, besides open discussions on Twitter.”

The first session was implemented last Friday in the Lounge Hall, in which a number of graduates and students in countries like Malta, Austria, New Zealand, UK, US and Australia delivered lectures about issues related to student life abroad. Speakers presented their experiences and gave information on what and how to do when being overseas,” Hamed said. “The meetings gave students and parents a chance to speak to graduates and Omani students studying overseas and listen to their experiences. Now, we are preparing for the upcoming session which will be held on July 23.”