KARACHI, Aug 31: As many as 583 graduates of the business management, computer engineering and computer science programmes were conferred degrees at the third convocation of Bahria University (BU), Karachi Campus, on Thursday.
The convocation was presided over by chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Mohammad Afzal Tahir, who is also the pro-chancellor of BU, while high ranking personnel from the armed forces, senior academicians, parents of the graduates attended it.
The maximum number of graduates (approximately 213) belonged to master of business administration, followed by BBA (175), bachelor of software engineering (98), bachelor of computer engineering (73) and master of computer science (16) graduates.
A total of 11 graduates received gold medals and another six received silver medals from the naval chief for their outstanding academic performances. The graduates belonged to the batches of 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005.
Speaking on the occasion, Admiral Afzal Tahir said that in a situation when material and social changes and progress had taken place considerably, the graduates were required to maintain the optimum level of their profession through continuous efforts and strength of knowledge.
The unprecedented pace of change around us is visible in every sphere of life and the world is reshaping itself with new boundaries clearly demarcated by knowledge, technologies and skills, he added, saying that Pakistani students too will have to equip themselves with sound scientific and technological knowledge, while keeping their minds open to new ideas, innovations and modern skills which were must for their professional growth as well.
He further pointed out to the graduates that they should build strong leadership qualities trough conviction in their religion, social values and personal conduct based on principles of equity, honesty and uprightness.
Earlier, the rector of the university, vice-admiral (retd) Farooq Rashid, while mentioning the development made so far and future direction of the university, said that whenever the future generation will find BU to be the catalyst of the technological revolution of Pakistan.
He said that government had approved a plan pertaining to promotion of maritime studies in the country and BU was at present working vigorously for establishment of an institute of maritime studies.
He also mentioned that the Higher Education Commission (HEC) had provided BU an amount of Rs100 million for faculty development with special reference to improvement of qualifications through PhD and MS programmes from foreign university.
Those who were honoured with medals are as follows:
Gold medals; Adeela Saleem (MBA), Khurrum Shehzad (MBA), Saima Abdul Rashid (MBA), Captain Mazhar Iqbal (MBA), Mohammad Haris Umer (MBA), Naveed Shehzad (MCS), Aqeela Ansari (BBA), Farheen Aqueel (BBA), Maheen Khan (BSE), Rizwan Ansari (BCE) and Sana Majeed (BSE).
Silver medals; Kishwar Hameed (MBA), Lt Cdr Mohammad Aslam (MBA), Mohsin Moosa (MBA), Maha Khan (BBA), Mariam Ahmed (BBA) and Qudsia Nayyar (BSE). Abdul Rahim Bhatti of BSE (2001 Fall) was given merit certificate.