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Undergraduate Research in Syria – A Call for Action

I am Nour Daoud, a Syrian student studying electrical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), under the Jusoor scholarship.

Written by Nour Daoud Published on Read time Approx. 4 minutes

I transferred to IIT a little more than a year ago after finishing four years at my university in Syria.I never thought that I would transfer to the U.S. and I did not know what Jusoor was.

Like many other Syrian students, I was feeling a sense of urgency and danger. I was a good student; my name was always on the dean’s list. But is that enough? What if my university closes just before I graduate?  These thoughts were always in my head.

Luckily, I came across the Jusoor scholarship on a scholarships page on Facebook. Jusoor was advertised as a community of Syrians around the world who wanted to help talented people in Syria and were committed to the country’s development, and so they were. I got accepted, and things escalated quickly! I got an internship with Goldman Sachs, did a research project in Germany as a DAAD-RISE Scholar, and I’m preparing for graduation. My life has completely changed.

Over a year and half ago, and prior to my enrolment at the Illinois Institute of Technology, I was doing a challenging project for my junior year at the Arab International University in Syria. Briefly, the specific problem that my colleagues and I sought to address was to automate a greenhouse environment and allow its control via text messaging (SMS).

Our efforts required a great deal of library and internet-based research as well as numerous meetings with my team. Unfortunately, it was not easy to meet everyone regularly due to the dangerous commute throughout the semester. Skype or other means of virtual communication were unavailable to us, so we often had to excuse ourselves from class attendance in order to meet in person, when it became safe for all of us to travel. We were under a lot of pressure because of our semester deadlines. But we did it. We presented our results to our fellow students, our project was regarded as a great success, and the faculty was impressed with our work.

Fast forward to September 2013, and with the situation escalating in Syria, the circumstances for undergraduate students to pursue independent or collaborative project-based initiatives or research grows increasingly difficult, if not impossible at times.

I am grateful for the opportunity to complete my education at Illinois Tech, but studying abroad is not an option for everyone.

It requires financial resources, even when generous scholarships are provided. Increasingly, families’ financial reserves are very limited, especially now because of the growing economic pressure that is forced upon all of us by the war.

Independent research and project-based inquiry represent some of the best form of learning for undergraduate students.  Given the circumstances of war, online courses and other internet-based resources provide wonderful tools for a small set of students in Syria with access to the internet.

But this connectivity is insufficient.

I am under no illusion that the current state of higher education in Syria will change drastically very soon, and I recommend that we all accept this as our current reality.  In speaking with individuals in Germany where I pursued advanced research, in New York City where I interned this summer at Goldman Sachs, and at IIT where I am currently a fourth-year student, there are a great many people who would suggest to simply “wait until Syria returns to normal.”

This is our norm, and we must act from this point.

First, we need regional and international faculty members and industry researchers to volunteer to serve as eMentors for undergraduate students. Second, we must enlist international funding and support for projects for Syrian students – especially women – with promising ideas; small seed monies would certainly be of a great help for them, and a sign of international support.

Third, we are grateful for the growing numbers of universities providing scholarship assistance to Syrian students. However, we need this level of engagement to increase significantly, and we must achieve a new momentum for learning. And again, we need this support, especially for women. Fourth, we need more global institutions to begin to provide credit and, where possible, formal certificates, for the independent work of students (undergraduates and graduates), in addition to reviewing it and helping them overcome any obstacles.

Fifth, at IIT we are working together with all who will join us to document, preserve and nurture the scholarship of current undergraduates in Syria; our goal is to create a permanent archive of current research projects and inquiry-based learning as a knowledge hub and exchange. We each have our own responsibilities to which we will be judged.

The motivation that I see among my friends and family in Syria pushes me every day to fight harder for this. It is devastating to see our country to go through so much, but we are not giving up on the coming generations and their education.

It is a fact that internet connections are not reliable or always available in many areas in Syria. It is, however, unfair to assume that no one has internet and give up on them all. We cannot move the whole generation abroad, but we can try to give them as many resources as possible, and motivate them by crediting them for their work.

There is a hunger for learning and change in Syria that will not be silenced or squelched under any circumstances.

 

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