| Danial Norjidi |
EDUCATION services agency Findlay held its International Study Fair yesterday, showcasing education opportunities at universities and colleges from the United Kingdom (UK), the United States of America (USA) and Canada.
Held at The Rizqun International Hotel, the fair gave visitors the opportunity to meet and discuss study options with representatives from 20 universities and colleges in the UK, eight universities and their pathway colleges in the USA as well as a college in Canada.
The UK universities include De Montfort, Derby, Lancaster, Northumbria, Portsmouth, Queen’s Belfast, South Wales, Southampton Solent, St Andrew’s, Surrey and Wolverhampton. The USA universities will include Drew, Oregon State, George Mason, James Madison, Colorado State, Alabama at Birmingham, St Louis and South Florida. In addition, Centennial College in Ontario, Canada will also be present.
At the fair, Findlay also looked to support Bruneians seeking employment prospects in the private sector by also featuring leading professionals to speak to interested students and help them make informed decisions on careers in their fields.
With the tagline “Solutions for Education, Employment and Excellence”, Findlay aims to support Bruneian students from when they begin to think about higher education options all the way up until they get their first job.
Youth at the International Study Fair. PHOTOS: BAHYIAH BAKIR
Sunita Martin, Director of Findlay speaks to the Bulletin
Speaking to the Bulletin at the fair yesterday, Sunita Martin, the Director of Findlay said, “One of the things we recognise at the very beginning is that students may or may not know what they want to study, and what sorts of careers are going to suit them, so we spend a lot of time at the very beginning working that out. If in discussion we can’t get to the bottom of it, we have the Morrisby Career Profiling Assessment that we also offer to students to help them make those decisions.”
“The second thing we recognise is the fact that students are not just focused on one destination. They’re looking all over the world now – we’ve become a global village.
“Findlay represents colleges in other countries, not just the UK but we have Singapore, Canada, USA, Australia and New Zealand.
“We’ve got three countries represented today, and we also have the Australian trade Commissioner here representing Australia as a whole, and our own table will represent all the other nations that we’ve got here. So students can look at several destinations and compare across them in one place.
“On top of that, to help them make better decisions about the courses they want to study, we’ve invited leading professionals from the private sector to come along and share with the students the benefit of their experience and knowledge so that the students can ask them about electronic engineering, automotive engineering, law, etc – what it’s going to be like in three years’ time, should they be specialising, should they be picking something different, what do they think the nation is going to need then – we let the professionals in those fields tell them directly.”
On what is next for Findlay, she said, “We will go back to supporting the students we have met here today, to follow up with them and see whether we can take their enquiries any further. Our way is not at all forceful or pushy. We really want to make sure that the programme they choose is right for them. It has to be right for them.
“We would like to have a second fair. We try to have two in a year and the second fair will be in August,” she added. “In between, we have rolling programmes. University and college representatives who couldn’t come today will come during the year to chat to schools or hold seminars in our office.”
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