BRAC University organized an orientation program for the new students of the Fall 2023 semester at Golf Garden, Army Golf Club on 3 October, 2023. Tom Miscioscia, Country Director of British Council Bangladesh, was the chief guest. Tahsina Rahman, Joint Director, Student Life, moderated the program. The program started with National Anthem.
Addressing the event, Dr. Dave Dowland, Registrar, highlighted the university’s partnership with the U.S. Embassy in Dhaka last year on the resumption of the U.S. Fulbright program in Bangladesh after six years and the university becoming the only South Asian member of Open Society University Network. He urged the students to make the best use of the opportunities, including the new campus being prepared in Merul Badda, Dhaka. He also urged to take care of that campus, saying it would be a resource for the whole mega city of Dhaka with its 23 million residents. Dr Dowland also recommended availing support services, such as that of the Academic Advising Team.
Dr. Samia Huq, Dean, School of General Education, said the university would help the students face the 4th and 5th Industrial Revolutions and globalization. She mentioned that BRAC University hopes to inculcate learnings both inside and outside classrooms, launching students into their productive adult years. The first two of their four years at the university would revolve around a General Education curriculum on a broad-based liberal arts education so that they can explore a variety of disciplines. It comprises core courses, community-based transformative and service learning, a Residential Semester, empathy and giving back, engagements such as through the Open Society University Network and scopes to travel and take part in international conferences, she said.
Mujibul Haque, a Professor of Finance and Associate Dean of Academics at BRAC Business School, suggested students be street smart and know more about the world than just subject matters, make friends for studies and have fun to develop interpersonal skills, engage in extracurricular activities to develop soft skills, work part time or freelance to gain some practical experience about careers, express oneself to let teachers know about their current state and be good people in general and practice empathy.
Dr. Sadia Hamid Kazi, Chairperson and an Associate Professor of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering under the School of Data and Sciences, focused on skills to acquire by 2025 – analytical and critical thinking, active learning and complex program solving. She also shed light on upcoming top jobs – data analyst or scientist, AI or machine learning specialist, big data specialist and digital marketing specialist. Urging students to join her department, she highlighted that 97 million jobs in these fields will be available in the US alone by 2025.
Dr. Rubana Ahmed, Proctor, informed that the proctor’s office and the Sexual Harassment, Exploitation, Bullying and Ragging Elimination Committee (SHEBREC) team is always ready to help the students on their academic and non-academic difficulties and to ensure that students abide by rules. She urged students to be kind and mindful in social media and retain and uphold values of BRAC University.
Tom Miscioscia lauded BRAC University’s teachers and staff and its internationalization efforts towards quality learning and research. A university degree is not only about availing a certificate but also about personal growth, global awareness and essential life skills, he said. In this regard, he referred to two quotes of Albert Einstein -- “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution” and “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid”.
BRAC University also recognized some students on their different successes. Of them, Fahim Abrar Abid, a student from School of Law, had earlier been acknowledged as “Best Researcher” in a 12th Certificate Course on Genocide and Justice, organized by the Center for the Study of Genocide and Justice- CSGJ of Liberation War Museum. Another, Upoma Adhikary, a student of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and a member of a robotics team, had won a People’s Choice Award in 2023 ICRA Roboethics Competition recently presenting a report and video titled “‘Runaround’ for today: Asimov’s Law to Ethically Resolve Dilemmas in Robotic Assistance". The last student, Eliya Christopher Nandi, an international student of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, won a scholarship under an OSUN mobility exchange program hosted by BARD College Annandale-USA Spring 2023.
The event ended with a fair comprising student-based clubs of BRAC University and a cultural performance by BRAC University Cultural Club.