“I’m about to graduate and I’m really confused about what to study,” said a visiting high school student. “I’m really glad that I could talk to some field experts and get a better idea.”
The exhibition showcases 25 different professions, from accountancy and physiotherapy to football and civil engineering, with experts from each sector present to answer any questions.
The exhibition is meant to help young visitors realize they have options when choosing their field of study. “Lots of young graduates are not sure what to major in. Most of their decisions are based on their end-of-year results, where they get accepted, and pressure from society and their parents,” said Noaf A. Al-Turki, manager of corporate communications at Rawabi Holding Co. “We’re showing them that there’s no shame in any of these professions; nothing is unacceptable. If it’s something that interests you, then that’s what you should do.”
The most common majors among high-school graduates are medicine, business or engineering.
“People ask us, why do you have culinary artists and mechanics in the exhibition?” she said. “There are mechanics who are very successful, and there are Saudi chefs who do very well. It’s not just the doctor or the engineer who make it big.”
What makes these seemingly unpopular fields even more so is that they lack support.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have institutes or colleges that teach culinary arts,” said Sameer Abdulrahman, who has 12 years’ experience as a chef and currently works as executive chef for Dhahran’s Graffiti restaurant.
“There’s nothing to support anybody who wants to study it, you have to go abroad if you want to, and for most people that’s not an option.”
Despite that, Abdulrahman was able to become a successful chef because of his passion for the profession. “I’ve been creating things in the kitchen ever since I was a child, and when I wasn’t able to study it in college I didn’t give up,” he said. “I have now created 600 original recipes, and I’m very proud of what I do. It’s a noble profession.”
Lack of choice is not the only reason students do not choose unconventional majors.
“There is a desire to learn about these majors, but students are scared because they’re not familiar with them,” said Sufian Sharaf, a legal counselor at Rawabi Holding Co. who volunteered at the lawyer booth.
“In high school, students don’t come across law at all,” he said. “For medicine, you’ve got biology. For engineering, you’ve got chemistry and physics, but there’s nothing in the high-school curriculum that prepares them for anything else.”
High-school curricula are set by the Ministry of Education.
Another misconception the exhibition sought to correct was that some jobs were gender-specific. “Five years ago we didn’t have female lawyers, but now there are opportunities opening up for them,” said Al-Turki, citing Muneera Al-Hamad, one of his company’s Saudi women lawyers. “We also have female petroleum engineers, not just male, and male fashion designers and wedding planners, not just female.”
“Regardless of gender, these jobs are available. Opportunities are there,” she said.
Visiting students were cautioned not to base their college decisions on money or even job security. “There are people who studied fields because they thought they would make a lot of money out of it, but they didn’t enjoy their job, didn’t do well at it and didn’t get the success they wanted,” said Al-Hamad.
“And then there are people who studied things they love, even though they seemed simple, and they did very well.”
“Our country needs people who are great at what they do,” she said. “Not people who just go to work and that’s it.”
