Incoming Class Hails from Across the Globe
As the spring semester begins, AUC embraces a group of eager and diverse students who are starting their first day of classes today.
This spring, AUC is welcoming 218 undergraduate students – 118 women and 100 men. Out of all incoming undergraduates, 21 have declared themselves as science majors and 11 are new scholarship recipients. Thus far, approximately 100 students have come to AUC this semester to pursue their graduate studies.
Continuing to grow its diverse environment, this group of new students includes 50 undergraduate and graduate students, with 17 students from the United States. Other countries represented at AUC this spring semester include Egypt, France, the United Kingdom, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Norway, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Germany, Denmark, Poland, Swaziland, Sierra Leone, Spain, Mali, Canada, Bahrain, Nigeria and Libya. Additionally, 70 students are from Egyptian governorates outside of Cairo.
AUC’s First Year Experience orientation program set up tours as well as ice-breaking games, activities and events that exposed freshmen to their new campus. During orientation week, President Francis Ricciardone welcomed the Spring 2018 students.
As part of the integrated orientation, Ricciardone presented the AUC community with its newest members, which also include four new faculty members and 24 new staff members. He stressed that the University’s entire operation revolves around providing students with the best experience possible. “AUC strives for internationalization, institutional effectiveness and innovation,” he said. “We are a student-centered, faculty-led, staff-enabled enterprise.”
New semesters on campus always also usher in study-abroad students from across the globe, interested in absorbing new experiences and integrating themselves into the dynamics of the region through AUC. “My university has a bilateral agreement with AUC, and I major in Middle Eastern history. I thought it’s better to study here than in Scandinavia,” reflected Mikal Wold, a study-abroad sophomore from AUC's partner university, University of Bergen, Norway. “AUC is great. It’s a big, modern campus with a lot of facilities. It’s been fun so far.”
Moreover, Ian Perry, political science and Arabic studies major and a junior at Williams College, Pennsylvania, expressed similar sentiments. “I wanted to study abroad, and AUC is the place to come for Arabic studies. I am taking one Arabic class, and the rest are political science courses,” Perry stated. “Everything [here] is easier than I thought it would be. ”
Each semester, AUC gains new talent, ideas and backgrounds that help individuals thrive on campus through research, creativity and cocurricular activities, and serve their local and global communities. “New community members reflect the distinguished image of excellence AUC tries to portray to the outside world,” Ricciardone concluded.
