Blind student Dana graduated with Canadian University Dubai's first cohort last week and continues to aim high, serving as an inspiration to peers.
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 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."
Full story: Gulfnews.com: Mission Accomplished
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