Dhiya Al-Saqri (MSc Applied Computing 2017)

Upon successful completion of my BSc at the College of Applied Sciences – Suhar in Oman, I was awarded a scholarship from the College to complete a master’s in Computing. I had the option to choose any university from around the world but, The University of Buckingham was my beautiful destiny. I started my postgraduate study at Buckingham in January 2015. There are places where you can dream, but there are places where your dreams become true. Showing you the creative side of yourself and by chance you find yourself spending every single moment in achieving a goal, a unique goal. Many of my goals were successfully accomplished during my stay at The University of Buckingham, and I believe that this success, the true success, was achieved by these factors: family and friends support, supervisor’s continues encouragement, and of course hard work.

I gained lots of new experiences through both studying and life. Going to the classes and studying the course was not the only thing I gained knowledge from. I was also crucially focusing on how lecturers were delivering the course because of my interest in becoming a lecturer. Therefore, I have ended up with two sets of knowledge.

I believe that the actual achievement, during these months, was having enough courage to leave my home and, with this continuous courage, I was able to accomplish other great achievements. In April 2015 I participated in the BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium held at the University of Edinburgh and was delighted to have won the Best MSc Poster for my project ‘Digitalised Human Body’. I received a travel and accommodation grant from the organisers to attend the event. In recognition of my achievement, I came third at Oman Ambassadors’ Award 2015.

I successfully finished my studies at The University of Buckingham in June 2016 and graduated in March 2017, where I received The Dame Barbara Shenfield Award made annually to the postgraduate who is judged to have achieved the best overall performance of the year.

I really enjoyed my new experience at Buckingham, both as a town and a university. The corridors, classrooms, classmates, lecturers of the Applied Computing Department (now School of Computing), days and nights that I spent within the campus, including the midnight walk to and from the school kept reminding me of the true goal of my journey to UK. Such tiny details will remain in my mind and I hope that destiny will take me to Buckingham again.

Today I proudly share my story at Buckingham with my students at the College of Applied Sciences – Suhar, in my home country Oman. I am currently an Assistant Lecturer and look forward to developing my career in academia by going further in my studies and complete my PhD.

I am pleased to share my story with you.

Finally, wherever you go your creativity will remain with no limits.