Dead Ends
Coming back from TEDxDubai a few days ago, I felt really inspired. I imagined myself up there as a speaker. To qualify as a speaker in a TEDx conference I would obviously have to be an expert in my field, I would have to have an innovative idea. I do. The implementation however, is the hard part here in Dubai.
For over a year I've been thinking about universities and the majors that I might possibly pursue. There are over 30 universities, colleges or institutes in Dubai alone, and over 45 in the UAE. Obviously, there are many options to choose from, both in terms of university and in major. Everything is available here; law to medicine, engineering to fine arts, psychology to business, almost all of the majors available in the most developed countries are also available in the UAE.
However, the problem isn't with the majors, its about what you're going to do with the knowledge you gained after your graduation. As developed as the UAE is today, it still lacks many things. Because the country, or Dubai to be specific, runs mainly on business and trade, there is not much support for other things which might be just as important as business for the community and the country as a whole. We have so much trade and tourism going on, but do we actually have our own production lines, do we conduct research, do we actually do anything other than buy and sell?
Well, other than the things I've mentioned, we do have alot of projects going on, many of which were halted, for the sake of tourism in the country. However I do not consider these projects "Emirati" because most of them were planned and supervised by foreign companies and thus were not made by the efforts of Emirati's or residents of the UAE.
All fields of study are available here in the UAE, but all job options are not. There are many jobs which you would not be able to find here in the UAE, and a lot of what you would find might not be up to the standards of your degree. For example, engineering is a major of really high standards, here in the UAE it has close to no applications. An engineer designs and builds things, how would the engineer do that in a place which does not have produce anything? where will the engineer work? Many engineers here are given the job of technicians, simply because there is no other post they could work in. There are other majors as well that don't give their graduates many career choices here in the Emirates.
If you try to narrow down the list of majors you could study, while taking into consideration your future job options, you would only be left with a handful of fields to choose from. Business, media, architecture, and possibly IT. These, and the majors that fall under them, are maybe the only majors for which a person could get a job here easily.
Then what are all the other majors here for? Why are we given a variety of majors when most of them will probably lead us to a dead end in terms of career choice.
For over a year I've been thinking about universities and the majors that I might possibly pursue. There are over 30 universities, colleges or institutes in Dubai alone, and over 45 in the UAE. Obviously, there are many options to choose from, both in terms of university and in major. Everything is available here; law to medicine, engineering to fine arts, psychology to business, almost all of the majors available in the most developed countries are also available in the UAE.
However, the problem isn't with the majors, its about what you're going to do with the knowledge you gained after your graduation. As developed as the UAE is today, it still lacks many things. Because the country, or Dubai to be specific, runs mainly on business and trade, there is not much support for other things which might be just as important as business for the community and the country as a whole. We have so much trade and tourism going on, but do we actually have our own production lines, do we conduct research, do we actually do anything other than buy and sell?
Well, other than the things I've mentioned, we do have alot of projects going on, many of which were halted, for the sake of tourism in the country. However I do not consider these projects "Emirati" because most of them were planned and supervised by foreign companies and thus were not made by the efforts of Emirati's or residents of the UAE.
All fields of study are available here in the UAE, but all job options are not. There are many jobs which you would not be able to find here in the UAE, and a lot of what you would find might not be up to the standards of your degree. For example, engineering is a major of really high standards, here in the UAE it has close to no applications. An engineer designs and builds things, how would the engineer do that in a place which does not have produce anything? where will the engineer work? Many engineers here are given the job of technicians, simply because there is no other post they could work in. There are other majors as well that don't give their graduates many career choices here in the Emirates.
If you try to narrow down the list of majors you could study, while taking into consideration your future job options, you would only be left with a handful of fields to choose from. Business, media, architecture, and possibly IT. These, and the majors that fall under them, are maybe the only majors for which a person could get a job here easily.
Then what are all the other majors here for? Why are we given a variety of majors when most of them will probably lead us to a dead end in terms of career choice.
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