UQU female students have documented their success stories in adapting to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, completing their educational career remotely and successfully passing the past academic year. Showcasing their talent and artistic skills, the female students presented their experience of depending on virtual classrooms as an alternative to regular classrooms and the challenges they faced in accomplishing projects and assignments according to set plans. This was presented in a challenge to describe their academic career which started on Ramadan 15th and culminated with a virtual closing ceremony on the 25th of Shawwal, marking the conclusion of the initiative activities with 6 female students from various colleges of the university winning the challenge prizes.

The initiative, which was launched by the University Vice Presidency for Student Affairs in cooperation with the Student Advisory Council, aimed to spread the spirit of competitiveness among the female students and to encourage them to show their best in making the optimum use of their talents. Moreover, it contributed to exchanging experiences and spreading the culture of managing crises, whatever type they may be. The female students' contributions reflected different genres of story writing, voice-over, film production, drawings, video clips, and designs.

Her Excellency the Vice President for Female Student Affairs, Dr. Sarah Al-Khuli, stated that the activities of the initiative represented the challenges the female students faced, demonstrating their strengths in overcoming crises by employing cognitive skills and showing various talents and artistic creativity. The core theme was the continuation of education despite the repercussions imposed by the current crisis and the preventive home quarantine measures.

On her part, the Assistant of the UQU Vice President for Educational Affairs and Development, Dr. Najwa Samraqandi, drew attention to the need of taking advantage of the current conditions by focusing on some positive aspects, like using the chance for time management and accomplishing delayed tasks according to their priorities. Supporting her views, she cited the developed approach the Saudi Kingdom showed in its management of the recent crisis.

The following are the winners of the challenge who reaped first place in the program's streams. In the voice-over stream, the student Kholoud Al-Maliki took the lead, Riemann Khan triumphed in the short films, Rahma Al-Ayyafi excelled in the drawing stream, Rana Al-Ahmadi in the video clip stream, Salhah Muharraqi narrated her story in the design stream, and finally, Duha Khayat wrote her story on her educational career.

On the sidelines of the ceremony, Dr. Sarah Al-Khuli crowned the College of Shari`ah and Islamic Studies among all the UQU colleges for achieving the largest number of female students' participation in the initiative's program. The second place went to the College of Computing, the College of Social Sciences, and the College of Designs. The College of Arabic Language and Literature, the College of Education, the Joint First Year Deanship, and Al-Leith University College were co-winners of the third place in terms of the number of contributions.

** To view some achievements of the students: Click here