Hands Across the Sea: Lessons Learned from the U.S. Fulbright Scholar Experience in the State of Qatar

摘要

Considering the impacts of ongoing globalization, it is important for researchers and educators to have dialogue and collaboration with their counterparts around the world. This possible collaboration has been facilitated through a Fulbright US Scholar program Experience in State of Qatar. The Fulbright US Scholar program sends approximately 800 American scholars and professionals per year to approximately 130 countries, where they lecture and/or conduct research in a wide variety of academic and professional fields. The program was established in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. The program's purpose is to build mutual understanding between people of the United States and the rest of the world. The author experience as a US Fulbright Scholar at a host institution in Qatar involved teaching, outreach and exploring partnerships with academic institutions in the host country, including education research. The teaching component involved development and delivery of a course on Embedded Systems Design for engineering students. As a result, graduating students gained current skills needed by industry and were better prepared for the workforce. The educational strategies need in the course were designed to bring the recent technologies in embedded systems used worldwide in industry to the classroom to teach theory with new and industry-relevant tools. An engineering education research phase explored the reasons, challenges, and motivations for considering engineering as career among both male and female electrical engineering students. Results of the research will help us better understand the experiences of female engineering students in the Electrical Engineering Department at Qatar University. The purpose of this engineering education research project was to propose strategies that may help balance the gender gap in STEM fields and increase the representation of female students, mainly in engineering majors in US, based on the lessons learned from Qatar University study. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the author experience as a US Fulbright Scholar, in the specific areas of teaching, outreach, and research in engineering education.