Feature

Living the Dream

Tanvir Ahmed

I started my journey at North South University in May 2005 with a dream of achieving the best out of my life through education. I was thrilled by the thought of going to university. Since my childhood, my vision of university has been encompassing around huge open campus, dust free air to breathe and a vibrant learning environment. I imagined floating in an ocean of knowledge and reaching the shore bit by bit, gathering experience, expanding my horizon and quenching my thirst for knowledge as I reach the shore. However, after joining NSU I was thrilled yet a bit disappointed as my first class was held in the midst of the concrete jungle of Banani.

I explained to myself that all good things come in small packages and yet the best part of my life came inside the not-so-small sky scrapping towers of Banani. It would be a cliché if I mention about the education quality of North South University. But for the record I must mention that North South University is the first private university in Bangladesh. It was established during a time when Bangladeshi students were going to foreign universities for higher education. The concept of private university revolutionized the higher education sector of Bangladesh. In no time private universities mushroomed all over Dhaka and other major cities of Bangladesh. Students and parents were utterly confused about the quality of education in the private universities; the media was also questioning the effectiveness of these education institutes, eventually leading to a bitter perception about the private universities in Bangladesh.

North South University took the lead and still is the leader among all others because since its inception it has been focusing on the consistent delivery of a world class education. NSU provided me with a structured system of education which was completely a new experience for me. Apart from introducing me to the cutting-edge modern interactive teaching method, NSU taught me the ideology of self teaching as a students' learning process. Life was busy, exciting and hectic as I shuttled among the five sky rocketing campuses which included Star Tower, Sher Tower, Lifo Tower, BTA Tower and GMQ Tower.

I was told by one of my teachers that we would be moving to our permanent campus at Bashundhara. I was awestruck; it again brought back my childhood memory of a university campus with open field and serene environment. Dreams do come to reality and on 9th June 2009 North South University turned its page for a new beginning in its own permanent campus.

I could not believe my eyes when I entered the new campus to attend my first class of the last semester. It is huge! A proud feeling of being acknowledged by other competing university students burst in my face. With an area of 6.6 acres (12.5 lac square feet), this campus is capable of accommodating 12,000 students with all modern amenities and facilities. It has three major units: 7-storied Administrative Building, North Academic Center (NAC) and South Academic Tower (SAC). School of Business Administration (BBA) is located in NAC and Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering (EECS) is located at SAC. I was literally lost finding my way to my class room in this huge campus.

The transition was pretty smooth and was mostly done during the semester break. I am really happy for the new students as they will be living my dream right from day one of their university life. North South University proved once again that they do go the extra mile to ensure that the students do get quality education in a quality environment.