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Selecting a university is an important, life-changing decision for prospective students and their families. With so many different institutions and academic disciplines on offer, university-hunting can be a confusing, even nerve wrecking, experience. This is the case the world over so there is no need to worry if you are not sure where you want to study and what you want to do. To make the choice that is right for you, however, it is imperative to understand what you must look for in any university.
Pakistan’s societal and economic evolution is at a point where the value for tertiary education is beginning to be truly recognized. While only 3 million young men and women attend university across the country, this number is set to grow over time. Both students and parents now recognize that a university degree is a prerequisite for landing a decent job. But they also understand that it is not a sufficient condition. Thousands of university graduates fail to secure reasonable futures despite having degrees in hand. The reason is that Pakistan’s universities vary greatly in terms of the quality of education they impart and the student experience they offer. Not all of them manage to equip young men and women with what it takes to be a wholesome professional. Employers demand this: they expect universities to operate as polishing schools that offer a holistic experience to prepare confident, psychologically stable, ethical professionals with the knowledge and skillsets required to succeed in an increasingly competitive world that is experiencing innovations at an unprecedented pace.
To achieve this, universities must have certain core attributes. A wholesome experience is impossible without the following qualities operating in tandem. Prospective students must evaluate institutions against these as they choose their future academic destination.
Students must appreciate that a university will be their academic home for their duration of study. They need to be prepared to immerse themselves in the university experience in its entirety. Being able to do so without feeling forced requires the university to provide an environment where every student is physically safe, psychologically secure, and feels welcomed and empowered. Indeed, the environment in which a student is forced to operate is the most important aspect to consider for students and families. Without a safe and healthy culture, academic and co-curricular excellence will remain elusive.
At BNU, we are acutely aware of this aspect. Our state-of-the-art purpose built campus offers a truly safe and welcoming environment. Since safety is an especially important consideration for female students, BNU is highly sensitive to gender-specific concerns. Bearing testimony to our success in this regard is the fact that we are one of the few Pakistani universities with notable gender diversity and balance. Our male-to-female ratio is 49:51, with some of our disciplines boasting 90 percent female students.
BNU is also a residential campus, offering hostel facilities for male and female students. On-campus housing provides comfort and peace of mind, especially to students (and parents) who are not from Lahore. Since last year, BNU has added a new hostel wing that can accommodate an additional 116 female students.
Safety isn’t only about physical boundaries. Mental health should be as much of a – if not a bigger – concern for university-going students. Unfortunately, our society still taboos conversations about psychological problems and stress and anxiety-related issues that are normal at this age and easily treatable. However, they tend to escalate into more serious illnesses and/or destructive behavior including substance abuse if not adequately addressed. Boasting an Institute of Psychology which benefits from the presence of renowned psychologists, BNU is well positioned to make this aspect of student life a priority. Over the past year, we have spent more time on ensuring adequate support structures for students in this domain than on any other issue. BNU offers dedicated on-campus counseling services to any student in need.
BNU is also proud to be a drug-free campus. We believe that illegal substance use of any kind and professionalism cannot go together. Too many precious lives get derailed due to this epidemic that affects Pakistan’s entire higher education landscape. As a member of The International Consortium of Universities for Drug Demand Reduction, BNU has taken this challenge head on, adopting a structured Substance Use Control Program (SUCP), which aims to address the root causes of drug-related problems at every level. The results have been phenomenal.
These efforts are aided by a promise to offer a culture that empowers students and offers them the respect and freedom they deserve. Traditionally, our educational structures have promoted hierarchy and often treat students as objects to be dictated to. Today’s younger generation cannot relate to this top-down approach. BNU prides itself in encouraging student empowerment. Set firmly within our cultural context, and holding true to our social values, we ensure that BNU students develop ownership of their institution, feel comfortable in voicing their opinions, and are not afraid to offer critique and constructive solutions. Any student can reach the institution’s top management with a click of a button. Even the Vice Chancellor maintains a totally open door policy. Our extremely low student-teacher ratios (as low as 1:7 in our studio courses and typically 1:20 in theory classes) allow for individual attention to each student as needed. These measures help in cultivating a feeling of belonging and high self-esteem among our student body.
The reality that a university degree is no longer sufficient to ensure a secure future will keep becoming starker as Artificial Intelligence takes over linear, mechanical tasks, leaving educated humans to compete for jobs that require problem solving and creative thinking. Even today, a number of global tech giants and multinationals are no longer interested in conversations about specific degrees and student backgrounds, they want to test whether your mind has been trained to think innovatively and creatively. Can you face and solve real world problems in new and exciting ways?
Pakistan faces an uphill task in this regard because our entire education system is anchored in the archaic approach of rote memorization. This is why, despite immense raw talent, Pakistan’s human resource skillset is losing out globally. The kind of minds that will excel in the future will be those with exposure to a broad array of disciplines and the ability to apply these in diverse contexts to solve real-world problems. This is the essence of liberal arts education. Often misunderstood in Pakistan as an ideological orientation towards liberalism or a singular focus on the arts, liberal arts actually denotes an approach that breaks disciplinary silos and teaches minds to think creatively and analytically irrespective of the situation they find themselves in.
When BNU was set up in 2003, explaining the value of liberal arts education in Pakistan was a greater challenge. Today, the entire world is recognizing the need to incorporate elements of the liberal arts in instructional curricula. Even Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education has morphed into STEAM, with the ‘A’ representing the arts. The HEC has also mandated multiple liberal arts-oriented courses in its undergraduate policies.
BNU’s eight schools offer a truly diverse array of disciplines. From visual arts and design to architecture, psychology, media and mass communication, information technology and computer science, business, economics, a brand new program on hospitality management, education leadership, social sciences, and the performing arts, our pedagogy and approach cut across disciplinary boundaries to provide students with the broadest knowledge base possible.
Last year, we initiated a novel program, BNU Connect, which promotes ideas and projects which include students from at least three different schools (disciplines). This forced cross-disciplinary approach is hard to find elsewhere. It has already shown remarkable outcomes, with four projects completed with participation from six schools across BNU. The successful projects can be further incubated and potentially accelerated into commercially viable products.
To further round up wholesome grooming and mentorship, BNU has now mandated exposure to courses in civics and ethics, community service, environment and sustainability, and logical reasoning. The university has also committed to becoming Pakistan’s first certified green campus in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and is also encouraging other universities to embark on this path, an experience that our entire student body will be contributing to.
Faculties are the heart of any university. They make or break the future generation. They are not only teachers, they must act as mentors. While the former play the critical role of imparting knowledge in a classroom, mentors parent students, working with them to identify and nurture their individual strengths. If prospective students only pick one attribute to focus on when choosing a university, let it be the credentials of the leading faculty. Its importance cannot be understated.
Once again, BNU is an industry leader in terms of the luminaries it is fortunate to call its core faculty. Few others can boast the international recognition, experience, and achievement of our most prominent faculty members. To cite a few examples:
Vice Chancellor:Apart from our permanent faculty, BNU’s international networks are further enhanced by our Non-Resident Faculty, Scholars of Practice and Visiting Fellows. The Vice Chancellor and each of BNU’s eight schools also have their international Advisory Councils comprising globally renowned academics and practitioners in their respective disciplines.
Perhaps the most immediate and tangible concern for parents in Pakistan’s current context is affordability. This is entirely understandable, as is the reality that quite often the choice of a university may be based on this metric alone. And yet, it is important not be lose sight of the ultimate objective of obtaining university education. The market reputation of a particular institution and degree matter enormously in terms of future prospects. Few things could be worse than working hard to receive a degree, only to realize that it will not receive the kind of market reception you had hoped for.
BNU is committed to finding the sweet spot of being able to provide quality education in an affordable manner. We are a not-for-profit university with no commercial intent and are committed to our motto of being a non-profit that cares. Our non-profit ethos and functioning were recently recertified by the Pakistan Center for Philanthropy (PCP), which evaluates non-profit institutions in the country.
Our institutional philosophy is that no individual who qualifies for admission on merit should be deprived of the opportunity to attend BNU solely because of affordability. Apart from maintaining fees that are comparable to our peers, we strive hard to provide as much financial assistance as possible to our students. Presently, between 35-40 percent of our students avail some form of financial scholarship, including many students who are on 100 percent awards. We are committed to raising the number of scholarships further in the coming years. Just this year, in addition to expanding our ongoing need-based and merit-based scholarships programs, we have introduced a host of new scholarship opportunities. These include:
Undoubtedly, the foremost question on the minds of students and parents is employment. It is obviously a critical marker of which university you choose to attend. However, you will end up making the wrong choice if you fail to appreciate that securing gainful employment is a function of multiple factors.
Every degree is not the same. Perceived quality of education and how well-rounded and professionally-oriented students from a particular university are matters in how the market reacts to an institution’s graduates. To be sure, sometimes these aspects are even more important than a student’s CGPA. This is increasingly the case as rampant grade inflation in some universities has diminished the attention employers pay to grades. This will especially be the case if you come from a university with such repute. Choosing a university based on ease of obtaining high grades and correlating that with employment prospects is a grave error prospective students often make.
Similarly, all employment is not the same. There is a qualitative difference between underemployment and gainful employment. Too often students and parents are satisfied with jobs that are not commensurate with a university degree. Universities are not supposed to train students only to perform professional tasks that lie at the lowest end of their discipline’s value chain. With a college degree, you earn the right to ask whether the job you have landed fits your qualification, skill and university brand. You must exercise this right liberally.
It is the responsibility of every twenty-first century university to position itself appropriately to maximize chances of gainful employment for its students. A prerequisite to managing this is having the right industry partnerships and real-world institutional networks. Academia-industry partnerships are now a necessity to ensure good job prospects for students.
BNU has invested heavily in this domain in the recent past. Student placements during their four-year journey are now compulsory (it is also HEC-mandated). We are also encouraging our students to do their final year projects/theses on real-world industry problems with prospective employers immersed in the most current industry trends. Many are already doing so.
Moreover, we are able to capitalize on multiple unique partnerships. Just to cite a few examples:
If you are an undergraduate student, for most of you, this will not be a terminal degree. One key responsibility of a university is to prepare and position you for graduate school, whether in Pakistan or abroad.
While BNU’s forte is its undergraduate programs, we have extremely strong Masters, M.Phil and selective PhD programs. These include Master of Art & Design Studies, Master of Art Education, MS Public Relations & Advertising, MS Film & TV, M.Phil Educational Leadership & Management, M.Phil Linguistics & TESOL, MS in Clinical & Counseling Psychology and PhD in Applied Psychology.
A number of our undergraduate students opt for graduate education in the familiar surroundings of BNU. However, those interested in going abroad or pursuing graduate degrees in disciplines we do not offer are optimally positioned to do so after the BNU undergraduate experience. Our students regularly obtain admissions abroad, including with partial or full scholarships. As many as 39 of our graduates have obtained full scholarships through the U.S. Fulbright program for instance and over 20 have embarked on the coveted UGRAD exchange program in USA besides clinching Erasmus Mundus Scholarships under the European Union scholarship program.
To further augment student exposure and opportunities, BNU is actively working to expand its already-healthy international academic partnerships. Our students regularly avail semester abroad options in Turkey and have also done so in Norway and Germany. We also provide students international experience through short summer trips, for instance to the U.S. for a two-week summer school. In addition, we are now pursuing a global strategy focused on university-based partnerships for undergraduate exchange programs as well as full and partial scholarships for graduate programs in particular geographical regions of interest to our students. These go much beyond the stereotypical destinations in the West. We are doing so since the global education landscape has changed drastically over the years. Some of the best universities in the world are now in Asia, and students also have different preferences, affordability thresholds, mobility options and goals for themselves. We are pursuing options in countries right from the US and Europe to China, Central Asia (Kazakhstan) and the Far East (Indonesia). This list will continue to expand.
An academic home that aims to give you a 360-degree immersion into university life and nurtures your many individual personality strengths optimally cannot restrict itself to academic instruction alone. To make the experience enriching enough for you to be excited about showing up to campus every day, universities must ensure that you are productively engaged well beyond the classroom.
The co-curricular activities at BNU play a crucial role in providing students with a comprehensive university life experience. With 16 vibrant Student Societies and Clubs, including the Debating Society, Wellbeing Society, Music Society, Entertainment and Dramatics Society, and Islamic society, there is something for everyone. Our societies actively participate in intervarsity events and organize various workshops, events, and competitions on campus. Achievements such as the Dramatics Society's multiple awards at FCC Theatro 2024, the Econ Society's Economist of the Year Award and the Photography Society's first prize at UMT Photo Fest 2024 highlight our students' excellence and exemplify our dynamic campus life.
In addition to fostering intellectual and artistic pursuits, BNU boasts state-of-the-art sports facilities that cater to both women and men, including cricket, volleyball, tennis, badminton, football, basketball, table tennis, and a newly developed gymnasium. Our sports teams have shown remarkable achievements, with the Football team emerging 6th in the HEC All Pakistan Football Championship 2024, the Table Tennis team securing a stellar position at the HEC Table Tennis Championship, and the Badminton team reaching the semifinals in the HEC Badminton Championship. Major events like BESTIVAL, with its wide range of workshops and competitions, and Model UN, enhancing diplomatic and negotiation skills, showcase the vibrant and engaging campus environment. The BELYMPIAN, an intervarsity sports competition, further emphasizes our commitment to holistic development, drawing nearly 400 participants from various universities in its latest edition.
All these opportunities are underpinned by one of BNU’s greatest strengths: diversity. Apart from our gender balance and socio-economic diversity, we receive students from across various regions of Pakistan. Our aim is to increase this inflow significantly going forward. Not only that, we are also the only university in the country with students from all eight South Asian countries who study art and design at BNU. Furthermore, our interdisciplinary approach forces students from all backgrounds to engage, mingle, and learn from each other without any discrimination. This exposure is priceless as it teaches students the importance of tolerating, appreciating, and celebrating diversity. In today’s Pakistan, where intolerance and bigotry have ripped apart the very fabric of our society, BNU is determined to play its part in reversing this trend bit by bit through our students and alumni.
The combination of these seven attributes creates a real life laboratory called the university that produces thinking adults with requisite skills, ethical values, and leadership qualities to succeed in any profession. BNU is proud to embody this mix in a perfect balance.
A plaque in the BNU Vice Chancellor’s office reads “we are not in the business of producing degree holders; we produce responsible global citizens’’. This implies that we want each of our graduates to walk away with certain trademark traits: requite skills to succeed in their profession; espousing ethical and civic values; demonstrating love for hard work and continuous learning and innovation; carrying ambitions to rise to the top of their field as leaders; and ultimately contributing back to the society they are part of.
We, at BNU, are confident of achieving this outcome.
