Bridging the Gulf Between the Campus and Workplace

This chapter explores the way involvement in student organizations contributes to an effective form of learning, particularly at the tertiary level. This can be seen to be part of experiential learning, which has long been the backbone of western education, increasingly being implemented in universities in the Arab Gulf, where education has hitherto followed a more traditional route. Based on the theories in the literature, this qualitative research outlines the multiple roles student organizations play in a context where learning independence, mixed gender interaction, and English language use are still developing concepts. Using personal interviews with stakeholders in a university in the Arab Gulf, this chapter ascertains the extent and the way in which student organizations succeed in enabling students to move beyond traditional learning to enable self-reliance by establishing social and professional networks and offering real-time instruction in such skills as time management and cultural communication, in addition to giving opportunities to use English in real-world contexts.