JEDDAH — A number of female students pursuing interior designing at the King Abdulaziz University (KAU) complained about the society's negative perception toward their preferred choice of study. Speaking exclusively to Saudi Gazette, a student on condition of anonymity said that a lot of people around her mocked her for specializing in interior designing at a university that excelled in home economics. But it doesn't stop there, another distressed student, who preferred not be named, said that some even despise them for choosing a government university. “Some members of our society accept graduates of interior designing from private universities in Jeddah, but they look down with contempt and disdain when they come to know that I am pursuing the same course from KAU,” she said. The young interior designing students said their anger became more conspicuous when they had to defend one of Kingdom's oldest universities. The students were also of the view that if compared there designs would be far more creative and contemporary than the designs of graduates or undergraduates from private universities or institutes. Saudi national Nouran Aljohani, 21, studying interior designing at KAU, said: “The lack of trust, mockery and degradation of our educational institution is not only limited to the Kingdom, in fact it has widely been noticed in other Arab countries as well.” Aljohani warned that the mistrust in their works should not be used as a pretext to belittle the efforts of the teachers who exert strenuous efforts to impart the best creative knowledge they can to their students. “Many people do not know that at the university of home economics, students are also taught engineering and architecture by renowned and highly-qualified professors. “It is only the name of the university that gives the erroneous idea about our specialization,” said Aljohani. Recalling a past incident, Aljohani said that once she went to buy some interior designing books from one of the interior decor shops in the city. The salesman welcomed her by saying“welcome students of Dar Al-Hikma and Effat College.” When Aljohani told him that she was from KAU, the salesman did not make any attempt to conceal his shock upon learning which university Aljohani studied. Tasneem Samarqandi, another KAU's interior designing student, said she was surprised by the look of disrespect given to her well-established and internationally recognized university. “Many people do not recognize the educational excellence of the university,” she said, adding that she once attended a graduation ceremony of interior designing students of a private university and was surprised to see that the standard of the designs the graduates exhibited. “The works the graduates displayed were substandard and far below the designs of our students,” Samarqandi added. At the graduation ceremony, a mother of a graduate was baffled when she learned that Samarqandi was studying interior designing at KAU. “The woman blamed me for choosing KAU and said it would have been much better if I had studied at a private university, saying that the private universities are much better than government ones,” Samarqandi said. She said on hearing the name home economics many people think that KAU only teaches cooking, sewing and husbandry. “They have no idea that we study engineering and architecture,” Samarqandi said. Sireen Khaled, who is also studying interior designing at KAU, said she becomes very unhappy when people despise her work and university. Khaled asked her fellow students to make it a point to participate in all interior decor exhibitions so as to obtain the society's recognition of their works and university. She said that even though KAU organizes a number of decor and interior designing exhibitions, it does not do good marketing. “There is hardly any attendance by media representatives or interested visitors or prospective employers at those exhibitions,” she said.
