AUC Holds Open Day for Prospective Students
The American University in Cairo (AUC) held its Open Day yesterday to allow prospective students to explore the University’s schools and the Academy of Liberal Arts and learn more about its 39 undergraduate majors and 58 minors. More than 1200 prospective students and parents from Egypt’s different governorates visited the AUC New Cairo campus, met with faculty members from every department at the different schools’ booths and learned about the University’s campus and facilities. Prospective students also explored scholarship opportunities, the admissions process and student life activities and took a tour of AUC labs, art studios and athletic facilities.
Jillian Campana, associate dean for undergraduate studies at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and theater professor at the Department of the Arts, welcomed the prospective students and their families in Bassily Auditorium. Campana highlighted the various opportunities AUC offers students, including the variety of majors, cocurricular activities and study-abroad programs. She stressed how a liberal arts education encourages students to think critically and find creative solutions to the challenges facing the region and the world, “This is what really sets apart AUC and its graduates because a liberal arts education seeks to produce leaders.” She told the students that “In today’s world, you need to know how to be able to do more than one thing as you would probably have more than one career in your life and you may have a career that doesn’t even exist yet.” Campana added that liberal arts education allows students to discover who they are as they can take various classes and subjects, allowing them to examine ideas from multiple perspectives.
To learn more about liberal arts education, prospective students attended a performance by AUC students explaining liberal arts education.
Throughout the Open Day, visitors attended the Majors Fair to learn about AUC’s different schools, including The School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the School of Sciences and Engineering programs, the School of Business and the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.
Students also attended talks by two inspiring alumni Sara Sabry ’16, founder and CEO of Deep Space Initiative and Amina Khedr ’22, future talent program brand trainee at Adidas. Sabry and Khedr talked about their AUC experience and the skills they acquired during their journey at AUC.
Khedr pointed out how her involvement in community service during her university years has helped shape her character and helped her look at the world from a different perspective. She joined the community development club Mashroo3 Kheir as a freshman and became its president in her senior year, “This experience has pushed me the most and added to my personal development. It added to my skills and made me more confident, agile and open to more opportunities.”
With her unique experience as the first Egyptian to go to space, Sabry encouraged prospective students to follow their dreams: “You can do anything you want, the sky is not the limit.” Sabry also stressed the value of liberal arts education, explaining that as a student she was interested in different ideas and topics and that her education at AUC allowed her to follow her passion. She shared with the students that she first started as an arts major and was interested in learning how to design cars. Her quest for more information led her to change her major to mechanical engineering and to study biology and chemistry as her minors. Sabry highlighted that the skills and experiences she valued the most during her college years were critical thinking, problem-solving in mechanical engineering and teamwork, which all gave her the courage to take risks. She added that she has acquired all her professional skills from her time at the University, “They all started here at AUC.”