JEDDAH, 18 August 2004 — Eighteen Effat College students have completed summer training and internships with major companies in Jeddah, Riyadh and the Eastern Province.
The companies that hosted them included Unilever, SAMBA, Saudi Aramco and 2 The Point, aside from King Faisal Hospital.
Computer science and information systems majors at the college must undergo a period of workplace training in which students complete a minimum of 160 hours on projects and other tasks related to their major.
Employers evaluating the students are asked to provide a detailed evaluation and certificate at the completion of the training period. This assists the student in her academic, personal and professional development and contributes to successful completion of degree requirements.
“Employer feedback reflects students’ personal qualities and relationships with colleagues, such as ability to communicate effectively with others, the ability to seek and use help, punctuality, creativity and problem solving,” said Dr. Annette Lagman, who chairs the department of computer science and information systems at the college. “Students are also evaluated on their job performance skills and productivity, with an emphasis on the completion of specific tasks. This can involve work on websites, databases, networking systems and programming for our computer science and information system students,” said Annette said.
“We’ve confidence in the excellent education students receive at Effat College, and it is important to provide them with work experience in business and industry to test how the skills they learn here transfer directly to the workplace. I hope their success will encourage more participants from the business community to participate in our summer training program next year by hosting more Effat interns,” Annette added.
The college is now accepting its first management science students for bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, marketing, industrial management and management information systems. “By the time they are ready for their internship program, we’ve no doubt they will be an asset to any company that takes them,” Annette said.
Employers were impressed by the quality of work and commitment of students. “I found them to be confident, intelligent, courteous, hardworking and willing to learn,” SAMBA Vice President Rasha Nuwailati said.
Students also were expected to complete at least one full project and present a detailed report of their experience. “I was given the responsibility for company networking and telemarketing. I believe I benefited immensely from having the internship. Work also helps build confidence, and there are points I feel could be revised in our teaching, as this gives a real taste of working life,” Zakia Bahajri said. Zakia, who is majoring in information systems, is completing a two-month internship at 2Gather, a company that specializes in events management.
