The Council Of European Jamaats

The Council of European Jamaats has held the Introduction to University course for a number of years and it has now become an annual event. This is organised and chaired by one of the university students. This year the Education Committee of the Council of European Jamaats was very grateful to Sidikabai Hudda for having agreed to take on this responsibility. Her report is below.

The students who had registered on the day, were circulated with the list of university graduates who had attended and registered with the Council which gave details of their contact address, the university they attended and the subject they were studying.
Networking of Undergraduates and also New Graduates is important for the health of our community. This was therefore encouraged.

Murtaza Datoo -Chairman, Education Committee -An Introduction to University” Short Course.
Project Report by Sidika Hudda.

As an increasing number of our community members are taking advantage of a university education CoEJ feels that it is essential to provide fresher students with an insight into different aspects of university life. They have been running an annual seminar just before term starts entitled "An Introduction to University".

The aim is to make the students aware of what they may be faced with as they enter into a new phase of their life. It may not always be easy and therefore the students will benefit if other members of our community, who have already been through the system, can share their experiences and give some guidance to them.

This year the 5th seminar was held on Sunday 5th September 1999 at Hujjat Imambara, Stanmore. I was asked to co-ordinate and chair this year’s seminar 3 and ½ weeks before the event and decided to take up the offer, as it was a good opportunity to promote university life. Little did I realise the challenge I was facing to make the event a huge success.
I had attended the event the previous two years so I had a good experience being a member of the audience. I have been studying Human Psychology at Aston University for two years, and was just about to start a one-year industrial work placement with the Citizen’s Advice Bureau.

This year’s programme took two forms, a combination of short talks as in previous years and discussion groups as an additional aspect. It was decided to use discussion groups as I felt the audience should be taking an interactive role with the undergraduates. This would be a chance to have a more informal part to the seminar, so freshers could feel more relaxed to raise some of their questions.

The topics covered during the short talks were related to many areas of university life, these are listed in the box below along with the speakers names. The talks lasted around ten minutes each, with a chance for the audience to ask questions. The topics that raised the most questions were “living abroad as part of your degree” and “masters and further study”. This may have been so as these are options available for which information is not easily accessible.

The aim of the discussion groups was to cover the sensitive aspects of university life, such as the more serious real-life dilemmas faced regarding religious, moral and ethical issues. As university life is considered to be very much opposed in it’s values to Islam, many Muslims can be faced with situations that will constantly put them to the test. Therefore a series of potential scenarios were devised, so that the small groups could discuss ways of facing and handling them without compromising their beliefs. The Islamic solutions to these scenarios were researched, and given to the freshers for reference. The participants were divided into small groups on the criteria of the location of their university. The aim of this was for freshers to establish links with other community members who will be nearby to them.

A booklet entitled “How to be a fresher (and survive)” was given to attendees during previous seminars. This year more articles were added, including some Islamic literature, and some recipes which students may wish to try. There were many other ideas that were in progress, but as time did not allow, they could not be added to the booklet.

Feedback / Evaluation forms were also completed by attendees in order to obtain their views and opinions of the programme. Ratings were given to various aspects of the day, and it was found that the highest rating was given to the place were the seminar was held. However this was not a surprise as around three-quarters of those attending were from the London area. The short talks were also rated on their usefulness, and the highest rating was given to the talk “Living away from home”. The reason for this may have been as this was one of the main concerns of freshers, as it would be their first experience of living away from the comfort of their home.

It was felt that by the large turnout and positive response, the event was greatly successful. Many freshers said that they found it very valuable for them, and felt it would be useful for other freshers.

As with any other event there is always room for improvement and changes. More time wouldbe useful for planning and research before the event to ensure as many areas as possible are covered by the appropriate people. Also literature from the various speakers would have been useful to present to the freshers for them to keep in case of future reference. This was only carried out with a very small number of speakers due to the short timescale. The new revised format was found to be effective as the programme was divided into sections to maintain the participants’ attention and interest, and this format would be highly recommended in the future.

I hope that this seminar’s success and popularity continues and strengthens in the future so that other freshers can benefit from the experience, so as to prepare them for the new exciting direction in their life.

Table 1. Short talk topics and speakers.

Graph 1. Evaluation Ratings.