FDC

YEAR 11 CAREERS EVENING

Usually for our Year 11 careers evening we invite around 20 speakers from our alumni community in to school to run sessions about their profession for groups of around 15 students at a time. The students sign up for three sessions of twenty minutes which they attend throughout the course of the evening.

With restrictions still in place that do not allow us visitors on site, we had to come up with an alternative online solution. It was an ambitious undertaking, setting up an event with 124 students, 20 speakers and 20 breakout rooms and something we had never attempted before, however, it did allow us to invite alumni from overseas as well as Dubai, therefore giving us a bigger pool of industry expertise.

From an NHS doctor, British Army Officer, Architect, Investment Banker, Lawyer, Structural and Civil Engineers as well as alumni from the UK Civil Service, KPMG, Microsoft and Goldman Sachs, to name a few, we had a wealth of knowledge to share their experiences with our students.

Ahead of the event, students signed up for three rotations of breakout sessions which would take place through the Webex platform. This involved setting up three separate meetings and adding the speakers and students to the correct breakout sessions for each one using their email addresses. Testing the system with a few staff before the event proved successful, so what could possibly go wrong?!

The evening began well with a welcome from Mr Lambert, followed by an introduction from alumnus Jean-Michel Gauthier. All appeared to be going well until we activated the breakout sessions only to find that a number of speakers and students had not been moved to their breakout rooms. As panic followed, it became apparent that emails entered on Webex were case sensitive and if the email had not been entered correctly on entry, the user was not recognised in the breakout sessions! With only 20 minutes for the first session, we raced to try to allocate students to the correct rooms, but sadly it resulted in several students missing out on their first session. By Session 2 and having identified the problem, students were asked to sign in again using their correct details. Unfortunately, there were still a few issues and it was only in Session 3 that the majority of the students were transferred to their breakout sessions successfully.

Obviously, we were very disappointed that this event did not go quite to plan despite our very best efforts, but our alumni have offered to run some more sessions over the coming months, so that the Year 11 students will not have missed out.

Mrs Debra Turpie Communications, Marketing & Alumni Relations

DC ALUMNI QUIZ AND SOCIAL ROOMS

Extraordinary circumstances call for exceptional adjustments. Enter Debra Turpie and quizmaster Robert Duce, the double act who somehow very successfully managed to curate a virtual DC Alumni London reunion over Zoom and Webex.

Over 40 students and former teachers gathered in a crowded cloud meeting room to answer questions such as 'How many acres is the site of Dubai College?' and 'Which of the 4 houses have changed colours over the years?' The prize? Heart-warming nostalgia, old school gossip and a dose of strangely uplifting screen fatigue.

At this time of the year we were all so used to gathering in a buzzing upstairs room of a central London venue to catch sight of our favourite Maths teacher, Young Musician of the Gulf winner or public speaking competition champ. The 2020 format was slightly different in that we were all logged in from our laptops or phones from various pockets of the globe but the sense of familiarity very much remained. A highlight was seeing current headmaster Mike Lambert being put on the spot when asked by our quizmaster to rattle off all the names of the DC headmasters since the school was first founded in 1978!

Once the colourful quiz, complete with sound effects and leaderboard scorecard summaries was disbanded, we dispersed to our separate chat rooms to e-meet those of a similar graduating class. The attendance alone was proof that this sense of community that ripples across the DC family retains its charm, even throughout the peculiar times that we have all found ourselves adjusting to; I’d like to think the school helped equip us with these skills of infinite adaptability.

The beauty of this virtual format was that alumni could join from all over the world and we had people dropping in from Mexico, Canada, France, UK and Dubai, it also meant that one could take a sneaky screenshot or 2 (see my selection top right!) Now…who on earth is the longest standing member of the DC staff? Answers on a postcard to Al Sufouh 2!

Sehr Sarwar 2007alumnus sehr@sands.london Sehr runs a PR agency between London and Dubai

JOURNEYS TALK BY ALUMNUS TALAL AL NAWAB

On Tuesday 23rd March during Form time, the Sixth Form students had the pleasure of listening to Talal Al Nawab, an alumnus of Dubai College who graduated in 2009. Having pursued Engineering at the University of Cambridge, and with his prior experience in Investment Banking and Consultancy, Talal had decided to dedicate his skills to his genuine passion: working directly with students to maximise their potential and receive top-tier education from highly competitive universities.

As the founder of Integra Education – a services firm specialising in the provision of US and UK university counselling as well as SAT/ACT preparation – Talal provided valuable insight into pursuing academic fields and applying to university. In this seminar, he stressed the importance of being ahead of schedule, starting the planning process early, and ensuring a lot of thought has gone into deciding what to pursue in university and beyond.

Furthermore, Mr Al Nawab emphasised the significance of being in the Sixth Form, along with its enjoyable experiences, a testament to how we all should truly cherish our final few years at Dubai College.

Kian Kazranian, 12SFO