Over the summer, a group of Stanford students were hosted at Qatar University for their Overseas Seminar on urban development in the Middle East. This week, the Stanford students returned the favor.
Four Qatari students visited campus in an unprecedented collaboration between Stanford and Qatar University, one of the country’s largest institutions for higher education. Arriving last Friday, seniors Nayef Al Ibrahim and Abdulla Alrewaily, as well as juniors Ghina Elkasti and Aya Saud stayed on campus, toured the University and the Bay Area and attended classes during their weeklong stay.
This visit, coordinated solely by Stanford students, was viewed as a reciprocal action of generosity for the visit to Qatar over the summer. Stanford students spent three weeks in Doha, Qatar’s capital, as part of the Bing Overseas Studies seminar “Project Finance, Urban Development and Construction in the Middle East.”
Al Ibrahim, a civil engineering student, explained this developing connection.
“Being here is like Stanford paying back for [the previous seminar],” he said. “It allows us to come here and visit Stanford, see what life is like on campus and expand the relationship between this university and Qatar University.”
Raffi Mardirosian ‘10, one of the 16 students who visited Qatar University and a chief organizer of the student exchange, explained that it was paramount to return the favor to their Qatari counterparts.
“We were shown exceptional hospitality and generosity during our time in Doha, especially at Qatar University, and felt compelled to reciprocate with a program of our own at Stanford,” he wrote in an email to The Daily. “The seminar was an excellent bridge between American and Qatari students, and we wanted to continue in the exchange of cultures and mutual understanding.”
Originally, eight Qatari students were slated to visit, but due to scheduling and visa issues, only four actually made the trip. For these four, Stanford provided a stark contrast from their own academic experiences. They were amazed with everything from the classes to student life to the sheer size of the University.
“The campus is huge and full of life,” said Alrewaily, a civil engineering student.
“And we’ve spent the whole week walking!” added Aya Saud, a junior studying architecture. “This is all very new to us.”
Also unique to them was the significant student interaction and campus lifestyle. For Elkasti, a chemical engineering major, it added a certain excitement and liveliness to the University.
“Here, students live on campus and spend all their time here,” she said. “But back home, we just finish our lectures and work and head back to our houses.”
However, for these students, the larger focus of the trip was economic and community development. Among the classes they attended included lectures on energy financing, project management and energy efficiency.
“It was really amazing, really great,” Al Ibrahim said of the classes. “One of the professors mentioned that the development back home in Qatar is like physical development, development that you can see. However, here, the development is with the expansion of knowledge and research.”
He went on to talk of the economic promise and future development of Qatar.
“Development is pretty fast,” Al Ibrahim continued. “If you just travel out of Qatar for two or three months, when you get back you’ll find some differences in the buildings, as well as the physical appearance of the country itself. However, lately, due to the financial crisis, it’s a little delayed.”
As for the development of education, Claire Roscow ‘10, another student who visited Qatar as part of the seminar, said both sides can benefit from academic cooperation. Citing other schools such as Cornell and Georgetown, which have established satellite campuses in Qatar, she believes that Qatar has its fair share of educational potential.
“America and Qatar are currently investing in one another, forming an exchange of resources,” she said. “I think anyone that has studied China and the Gulf recognizes the sheer power of these two nascent, booming economies. It behooves America, and Stanford itself, to form great relationships and open channels of communication.”
A relationship with Stanford would be of great benefit to Qatar University, which currently lacks any postgraduate programs.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for our university to have a relationship with Stanford, one of the best schools for science and technology,” Elkasti said. “I think in going back to Qatar and telling students about our experience, of course, they’d love to experience it too. Also, since we don’t have graduate programs, this will help students look forward to their graduate studies and perhaps look to Stanford and want to apply here.”
For Al Ibrahim and his peers, the immediate goal is to strengthen any and all ties for the sake of the future.
“We’ve been thinking that when we go back home we’ll start planning for the next seminars at Qatar University,” he said. “From all our experiences, from the previous seminar, from this visit, we want to find how we can come up with something that can expand the relationship between Qatar University and Stanford.”
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