Four alumni of Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar returned to campus to discuss how their undergraduate education set them on a course for lifelong learning. Maria Ali, Shakir Hussain, Zeinab Khalifa and Bilal Sheikh spoke at Tartan Talks, a forum hosted by CMU-Q’s Career Development Office for alumni to share their experiences.
Now working for Northwestern University in Qatar, Hussain’s career is focused on enhancing the learning process through technology. As a learning engineer, he collaborates with faculty members on academic research and implementing educational technology tools to keep students engaged. “You learn from your failure as much as everything else. It makes you discover the resources to face your problems and how to respond to them.” Hussain, who graduated from the Information Systems Program in 2010, has completed a master’s degree and is working on his doctorate.
Sheikh, who graduated from the Business Administration Program in 2016, now works at Careem as an assistant general manager. “I have maintained the hunger for learning since graduation,” said Sheikh. “I work with a network of 300 people, so I reached out and I started to learn how corporate sales function, how to structure and what to negotiate. I don’t miss an opportunity to explore.”
As a digital channels engineer at Vodafone Qatar, Khalifa finds ways to apply her education to new practical challenges. “Courses that I thought were irrelevant, are actually very relevant,” she said. “Algorithms especially have been helpful—we implement them every day, technically following the same approach as at CMU-Q, but on a bigger scale.” Khalifa is a 2016 graduate of the Computer Science Program.
Ali graduated from the Biological Sciences Program one year ago, and is now working as a research assistant at CMU-Q. “A skill that we learn at CMU-Q is to be a reflective practitioner, to be solution-focused, not-problem-focused. It’s about the learning experience, and having the ability to recognize your mistakes, think about your next step and move towards it.”
Graduates from CMU-Q are making a deep impact in Qatar and around the world. Most choose careers in top organizations, and many have completed graduate studies. A growing number are pursuing entrepreneurial projects. With 11 graduating classes, the total number of alumni is nearly 800.
