Two weeks ago I had a good gathering (Dewaneya) with some fresh Kuwaiti students here in Bangor. There were like 10 Kuwaitis in the meeting and I was introduced to every one . Their ages varied; some were in their early twenties and some were thirties (but few) and there was finally some one who is older than me ; he was 43!. I think the Kuwait student union started to pay attention to Bangor because the number of Kuwaitis started to grow every year and as a result they asked for someone to volunteer as a representative for the Kuwaitis in Bangor. If you have read my topic that I wrote in late 2010 “Happy Eid” you would have seen that I already asked them for a representative, but maybe they did not read my post or maybe they aren’t aware of my blog yet and there is a Kuwaiti student who maintains it. If you type “kuwaiti students in uk” you will get my blog listed .
I took my son Ahamd with me that day to the dewaneya we both had cold so the poor fellow slept in there. We had a nice talk with the students and afterward a nice meal was introduced. From my knowledge of meeting Kuwaiti students in Bangor and sometimes hearing about others that I have not met yet ; I can tell that the most common majors (subjects they study ) classified by departments: Business school , Computer Science , Sports science , Ocean Science and college of Health. The level of education varries from bachelor to master and a PhD.
ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) is a well know certificate for accountants internationally. I have taken this course for the first time and I’m studying now Taxation (F6) at Bangor management centre. Its a fun subject and I really have learned a lot. It teaches you how taxation works in UK along its calculations. You learn about how to calculate taxable incomes from various people. Be it employee , self employed , business man or investors you name it. My exam will be on December 6th and I have been told that I should train my self to answer past exams in order to pass. I was exempted from four ACCA modules (F1-F4) because I have done a master degree in accounting. The funny thing is my taxation tutor has told me that she needs to do higher studies and she already has enrolled in Msc accounting and finance like I did and now she is accepted in my past university (Bangor University). She told me that she needs it to develop her academic skills. She is already good at the professional side but maybe she needs the analytical skills that academics posses (remember my old post : Academic Entrepreneurship). Unfortunately I could not continue at Bangor university to do PHD because my targeted tutors are full and they can not supervise any extra students. So I asked my targeted genial tutor for a recommendation (related to my PhD topic) and she advised me 2 persons. I briskly checked them out and indeed they have a good reputation in accounting research. My current PHD topic which I’m willing to do is about Graphical representation of financial information by corporations. I like that topic and I insist not to change it for any reason. However that have a price as not a lot of academics around the UK universities share this interest, and that made me spent a longer time and bigger effort searching for the right person at the right location. I managed to find some good ones, but I did not choose them because these institutions don’t have a high RAE rating which is very essential for my future career in Kuwait. I’m still waiting for a response from one of the universities, the sooner I get the offer the better, as my time here in UK is crucial and limited.
I have not posted for a while now, because I was on a holiday for nearly a month in Dubai, Malaysia and Singapore. I’m going to write about my trip in more details in another post. I missed my graduation ceremony at Bangor University as it happened 3 days before my arrival in the UK. Anyway I expected that and I was told that I can order a DVD, to be honest with you it does not make any difference with me, at the end we all got our degree certificates . In my case I now hold an MSC accounting and Finance.
Anyway , here is the funny part. After our arrival from our trip to the North Wales my wife had a graduation ceremony , we went with her (me and the kids) to the graduation PJ hall at the Main arts building. My daughter Amina (8 months) was the star of the attendees , she was chatting loudly and screaming in the hall that made every one laugh. I also borrowed my wife’s gown and wore it and took some photos.We met some old university friends and went on to have a light meal at Uno Cafe. We have taken a lot of pictures that day and the days of the master degree are over. We are now in the PHD stage and I’m sure I will have many stories to tell you when I finish.
My daughter Fouz and my son Ahmad go to a school named Hills Groove. Its located in Bangor not far from my home in Anglesey, its only 10-15 minutes by car if there is a traffic in the morning. Well I went to see their Christmas play this afternoon, the funny thing is that I took my little daughter Amina with her mom with me. Amina was asleep the whole time, thanks God she did not cry up there while every one was listening. Speaking of loudness, couple of kids made a huge noise, that attracted every one’s attention. Anyway, they were two plays, one for the little once-Ahmad’s class, and the other was for Fouz-the older class.
While I was there, I missed the Gulf Cup – currently in Yemen- match between our national team Kuwait Vs. Saudi Arabia, because they were playing at the same time as the play. I was told the result and its a draw-nil.
The hot news nowadays in UK is the English (mainly) student protest against the increasing college fees and the unemployment. The students worry about not being able to pay for the high fees, and if they do –if they take loans as usual- they wont have jobs- which will make them unable to pay for their debts. From what I observe about what’s happening in USA and UK now reminds me of a book I read long time ago Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. The book mainly argues that the common advice that we are getting from our parents: “Go to college and get a job” is an obsolete advice. The author finds it very risky to accept this advice in the information age we are living in. He explains that this idea is for and works well in the industrial age. Well what can I say more , I find the reality very much confirms the book’s message. I think many of us are still dependant on pay checks and our jobs, and we don’t feel the risk and the trouble of such dependence until we lose it. People seem to look for security and interestingly when you look for security you lose it. As Kiyosaki puts it: the most secured place in earth is the prison. So if you want security you will live like a prisoner without freedom. This job-no job topic is big, and I’m going to talk about it alone in the future. My advice for myself first and you, is to try to liberate our minds as a first step toward being an information age inhabitant. We also have to watch what kind of advice we are getting and the type of people who are delivering it. Our kids in Hills Groove and the others in the universe should be taught by their parents on how to live according to their generation rules and not ours.
Q: Can you become an entrepreneur if you are an academic ?
A: Yes
I have read some academic articles that focus on the role of academic brains in commercial enterprises. The level of academic varies starting from undergraduate to PhDs and professors. They gave many examples of different industries such as IT, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, etc. There were many questions raised by those researchers such as the skill of academic entrepreneurs, the motive behind joining the business world and my question would be how well did they do ? because being entrepreneur requires different skills and mental framework than being an academic. How did they manage to spin-off from the scientific world to entrepreneurial world?.
In this article I’m focusing on the skills part only, by showing that academics can posses high talents when it comes to problem solving and analyzing. Most of entrepreneurs in the street got the spirit but lack the analytical skills. Academics on the other hand, do not have that problem due to their experience in research.
Obviously Katalin Balázs the author of “Academic Entrepreneurs and their Role in ‘Knowledge’ Transfer“ argues that the main skill they posses is the transfer of knowledge to the small business they establish or participate in. The sample that she covered was Eastern and central Europe such as Hungary, so we can not be certain about the rest of academics in the world. However, we can learn something from it when it comes to understanding common skills that academics can offer for the business community.The author also classified knowledge into subsets and skills :
“
. knowledge of knowledge
· knowledge of people (informal contacts)
· organisational knowledge
· market, partners, firms (who’s who)
· technical knowledge (history of particular pieces of equipment)
”
The above categories according to the author are the type of knowledge that can be transferred from entrepreneurial academics to the business. However , I’m not sure about the people and the market knowledge, because these information are acquired mostly by some one who is deep in the street-market and not just by being at the university only.
As a student at Bangor business school , I like the ‘entrepreneurship’ program that Bangor University offers for young students to prepare them take a future ‘entrepreneur’ job rather than prepare them mentally to pursue a job like what most universities do.
The entrepreneurial tool of the day is : Education. Whether you get an academic degree, read books or attend seminars. They are all important for you if you seek success and improvement in life and business. That does not mean that if you are an academic you are done. There are many types of skills that have to be learned that you do not find at universities. Life is a big school and we shall all continuously be life-long students.
This site is dedicated to help entrepreneurs around the world. It doesn’t matter if you are young or old entrepreneur, its never too late. Talking about old entrepreneurs who are older than 50 years old, I came across a new terminology to describe them : Olderpreneurs ! I first heard the term while I was driving back from the computer labs at Bangor University at midnight few days ago. I was working on an essay “Are German banks riskiers than European competitors ?” with my friends, gladly We finished it today and submitted it. That day I was listening to BBC radio , and I heard a couple of English people talking about olderpreneurs and olderpreneurship, that gave me a wake-up call trigger. They were talking about success stories for olderpreneurs, and funding programs that they can use. I guess the term “olderpreneurs” is only used in UK, thats what google said. The British papers also highlighted that, according to the Guardian. I also found an interesting wiki website calledWikipreneurshipthat specilizes in Entrepreneurship which also highlighted olderpreneurship. The amazing fact that I discovered according to the Guardian : is that success rate at establishing start ups at older age seems to be better than youngsters. They justified that by experience- older people have more experience and better skills. I totally agree with that, experience is an important factor, but what matter most is MOTIVATION. I have seen successful people from all ages, and they are all motivated leaders. The trend according to a UK research shows that the number of olderpreneurs are increasing in UK, interesting and I hopefully see it around the world.
I have most of these photos taken today. The pictures were taken in our neighborhood in Llandegfan – North Wales.I’m studying Master degree in Accounting and Finance at Bangor University- UK. In my country Kuwait , the weather is totally the opposite than here. Its warm and we do not have snow I’m enjoying my time here with my family and friends. Enjoy the pictures !
Me at night in the snow
Me at noon in the snow
Our Neighborhood
My son Ahmad
My daughter Fouz. You can see my neighbor Rob gathering some snow to fight back
I was browsing Bangor University’s library last week , looking for books for my essay. I found a tiny book called : ” A Technique for Producing Ideas “. I borrowed it and I was amazed of the contents. The contents are so rich in meaning that they are bigger than size of the book. The author is an expert in marketing and he shares his success with readers by showing his “producing ideas” principles and methods. The technique is so simple , and the book is worth buying.
I would like to congratulate all my family , friends , colleagues at Bangor University and all Muslims around the world for Eid. I wish every one happiness and healthy life. I’m now in UK away from my home Kuwait , its quite different atmosphere here. I also feel sad because my auntie Amina passed away in Kuwait two days ago. She was like a mother to me , and I will always miss her. I pray to Allah to keep her soul in heaven.
I would like to share a link that aggregates many Kuwaiti blogs and bloggers, its called “Kuwaiti Blogs” . It has a big list. Today I submitted my first essay at Bangor University, the subject was International Financial Markets (IFM) . There are about five Kuwaiti students at Bangor University including me. Im also the accounting representative for post grads. I also updated my photo , you can find it at my “about” page. To know what I am doing at Bangor University, please read my post : MSc Accounting and Finance at Bangor University . I have an advice about blogging : Take it easy during your blogging journey, jot down your thoughts and have fun.
” you would have seen that I already asked them for a representative, but maybe they did not read my post or maybe they aren’t aware of my blog yet and there is a Kuwaiti student who maintains it. If you type “kuwaiti students in uk” you will get my blog listed .
. In my case I now hold an MSC accounting and Finance.
I’m enjoying my time here with my family and friends. Enjoy the pictures !
