College of the North Atlantic-Qatar (CNA-Q) has welcomed nearly 300 new students and 25 new employees with a full range of orientation activities, ranging from campus tours to BBQ lunches, and scavenger hunts to workshops.
“It is important to make sure that our new employees and students are well-informed and that they feel they are part of the CNA-Q family,” said Dr Ken MacLeod, CNA-Q president. “Over the past few weeks, our orientation committees have done an outstanding job in making that happen.”
One of the new activities was a parent-student night, which allowed first-year students and their families to meet college executives, learn about the various extra-curricular activities available and tour the campus. With presentations from Dr MacLeod and members of the student representative council, it was a fun and informative night for the newest members of CNA-Q.
“It was great to meet so many parents,” explained Leigh Willis, chair, School of Information Technology. “I brought a new student and her parents on a tour of the School of Information Technology building. I think they were happy to see where their daughter would be studying and learn about the different support tools available to our students.”
2014-2015 marks the 13th year of CNA-Q with programmes in business studies, engineering technology, health sciences, information technology and industrial trades.
“As a college, our vision is to provide the youth of Qatar with a learning experience grounded in applied, real-world, experiential learning, and in that regard, our 2014-2015 academic year is off to a stellar start,” said Dr MacLeod.
The 2014-2015 enrolment includes close to 2,100 students in business studies (781), engineering technology (521), health sciences (292), information technology (292), industrial trades (160) and language studies & academics (31).
Working closely with local industry, all courses are monitored to ensure both timeliness and relevance.
Half of the CNA-Q students are sponsored by local companies and industry. Since opening in 2002, CNA-Q has graduated 2,580 full-time programme students and recognised another 1,320 Industrial Trades students with certificates I, II and III.