Ahsaan Khan is our UGRAD alumnus who went to study at the University of Missouri. For him, his exchange program experience was a life changer both personally and professionally. Before participating in the UGRAD he wanted to pursue a master’s degree to start a profession in academia and continue to the Ph.D., but after getting the experience of a US Engineering college, he redrafted his goals accompanied by added technical experience. “My UGRAD experience was a life changer both personally and professionally.”
Having studied graduate-level subjects from faculty at the University of Missouri, talking to the professors and professionals, he learned that for his stem field (engineering), technical knowledge is very necessary and the faculty either had considerably strong technical experience or related to the industry in indirect ways. He observed that this gap in his country’s engineering colleges was very prominent. So, he decided to step into the industry, take a gap from academia, enrich his technical knowledge, and then revert to academia for building technically strong engineers in Pakistan.
While Ahsaan was in the U.S., he got a chance to work in an automotive manufacturing plant, that plant had a strong affiliation with his university’s engineering department. He learned many new things there and when he returned, he joined Hyundai’s automotive Plant in Pakistan and observed the industry-academia gaps. Now after spending a year in Hyundai, he has joined Sahiwal Power Plant in his hometown. “The US experience has molded my plan to reach my goals and I hope that it will be in the best interest of my country’s coming engineering students and will lead me to play a noticeable role in the STEM field of Pakistan,” Ahsaan.
