Priorities:Khalifa University of Science and Technology Student Priorities
The chief goal behind our brainstorming and prototyping is to build a better environment for university students. Whether first years or seniors, we sought to identify what major issues students at Khalifa University were facing. We opened up new tabs of blank sheets in our heads and filled them out with plenty of ideas, some of which seemed too simple and others way to complex. At the end of it all we combined what wild ideas we had and came up with conclusions to four problems:
- Lack of student focus during labs
- Lack of self expectations among students
- Lack social interaction between students
- The difficulty of transitioning from a high school atmosphere to university atmosphere
In order to implement a solution to each of our ideas, we spread out across campus discussing how our ideas can be restructured to best-fit students’ needs.
Ruba, held two projects in hand: the LabED idea as well as the re-design of Mailing System. Both projects revolve around technology and are as equally important. LabED is a resource design around laboratories. It helps better understand what the lab session talks about and includes a demonstration of the experiment. Also, it has questions about the sessions to help see if students are aware of what the lab presents as well as worksheets for students to record their data. As for the Re-design of Mailing System, the goal is to categorize emails based on what their subject is so that students wouldn’t have to regard emails that are non-academic as junk mail. This system helps students distinguish what events are going around campus. It also allows them to be more interactive with their interests.
Maryam was in charge of the Leadership with Emotional Intelligence project. The course associated with this idea is designed to help students paint a futuristic picture of their life after university. The course starts by helping students build self-confidence and higher their self expectations. In other words, starting within the individual to then branch out and describe how he/she is willing to interact with others and be a representative of their society.
Hajer juggled the biggest of projects; the Freshman Year Experience program. The project is designed to facilitate the transition from a high school atmosphere to university atmosphere where responsibilities pile up for incoming students. This ease happens through a portal or application, that helps students interact with one another socially, from talking about academics or just saying friendly “Hello”. The application also benefits freshmen by introducing them to the campus through sending notifications about news around campus or upcoming events and workshops to get acquainted.
Moreover, the talks we had with around campus played a vital in our process since it was through those conversations that we knew how to improve our ideas and how well they would be accepted after implementations. And to aid in implementations we looked at various resources around campus which included the IT department for technological aid such as designing apps and creating webpages, the Health and Social Sciences department to further develop the Leadership with Emotional Intelligence course, and the Freshman Year Experience team at Khalifa University to pitch out idea and encourage its completion.
