Dr. Ali Khamesipour, Program Manager

“We just love the business a little bit more than our competition,” said Lindsey Owen Jones, the president of L’Oreal S.A., when he was asked how the business is so successful by Forbes. This is our mentality at the School of Technology and Computing. We enjoy the work when it is easy, and we love it when it is challenging. We embrace all the challenges to make sure our students succeed in their journey. Mark Sanborn talks about a mail carrier named Fred in his book “The Fred Factor: How passion in your work and life can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary” who viewed work as an opportunity rather than an obligation. The example Mark talks about in his book is quite interesting. He mentions that the mail carrier, Fred, is more concerned about my mail than I am. Through their conversation, Fred offers different solutions to Mark for providing his mail since Mark is constantly on travel. The key to Fred’s success is that he views his customers as friends.  

Here at the School of Technology and Computing, we are providing different platforms to help our students flourish professionally in their future careers. The various community building events, different student clubs, research groups, invited talks and other extracurricular activities are all good examples of such platforms that help build a community and nourish our eco system at CityU.  

My advice is to make the best use of these opportunities in a goal-directed manner. Get involved in the community-building events to find mindlike classmates and build your networks, engage in student clubs to present the work you are interested in (your team project, personal projects, or a topic you are personally passionate about), or attend the research meetings to progress in your research steadily but slowly. Focusing on the same problem throughout the lifecycle of your program at STC will help you both save time and gain valuable skills and confidence on that specific topic.