Dana Nashawati graduated with Canadian University of Dubai

Dana Nashawati lost her sight at age 13. However, a misfortune that would have crushed most teenagers, only served to fuel her drive to succeed, and succeed she has. Nashawati, now 23, graduated with an undergraduate honours degree in business administration and human resource management with the first cohort from the Canadian University of Dubai (CUD) last week. As most of her peers stressed about exams and assignment deadlines, Nashawati took it upon herself to hold down a full-time job while reading for her degree part-time. "I had to change my schedule for the last year of university to work on weekends and attend university during the week," she said. "It was extremely hard and took a lot of patience and encouragement and support from my parents." She has been working for Emirates airlines Skywards as a senior customer service agent since the age of 19 when she was in her last year of secondary school. The straight-A student's ambition of achieving an undergraduate degree was initially somewhat of a mission, but in just over three years her mission has been accomplished. "It was hard to find a university to accept me with my condition," she said. "Most of the institutions I initially approached refused me because they didn't have the right facilities." CUD accepted Nashawati on a trial basis, but as all went well, became ever more helpful in facilitating her academic success. "They offered me a scanner, which allowed me to convert papers into word documents to be able to study via a screen reader," she said. "I'd previously tried learning Braille but got depressed; I used to read a whole sentence in minutes but with Braille it took the same time to read one word." Nashawati added that although her visual impairment was an added challenge it motivated her to prove to people it was not a crippling disability. "Being visually impaired made university and work an extra challenge," she said. "It enables me to show people that although I have this disability nothing can stop me." It would seem her sentiments ring true, as on the day of her graduation last week, Nashawati was enquiring at universities in Dubai about enrolling in a master's programme. "I'm planning to do a master's in quality management and was actually making the phone calls on graduation day," she said. "I'm very positive about my acceptance but I need to start the official paperwork." Officials from the Canadian University of Dubai (CUD) announced last week, the introduction of a school of communications and a school of environmental sciences for the coming academic year. The new departments come in addition to CUD's schools of engineering, business administration and applied science and technology. Butti Al Gandi, Chancellor of CUD, said the expansion comes as part of a desire to reach out and cater to certain demands in different parts of the UAE. "We can see the thirst for knowledge and the market wants networking and communications professionals," said Al Gandi. "We are also planning to look at opening up campuses in other emirates within the UAE and possibly in other parts of the region."