UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Abdulrahman Alnanih has been planning for two years to make the 6,500-mile trip to attend his Penn State graduation ceremony.
“From the day I registered for my first course, I said I have to go to the commencement,” he said in a recent interview by phone from his home in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. “It’s a culmination of all the late nights and all the hard work.”
Alnanih, who is 26, received a master’s degree in systems engineering from Penn State Great Valley School of Graduate Professional Studies. He started his studies through Penn State World Campus in January 2014.
Alnanih said he chose to study at Penn State online because he had just started working as an electrical and low-current engineer at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Thuwal and didn’t want to leave his job.
Penn State’s ranking and name recognition appealed to him, he said, as did the flexibility of its programs.
Because of his job and the time difference — Jeddah is eight hours ahead of State College — “It was very important to me to choose a program that would give me the flexibility to work on my own time,” he added.
Before enrolling, Alnanih was concerned about whether online classes would be as high-quality as face-to-face classes, but those concerns were quickly allayed.
“After my first semester at World Campus, I realized it was as challenging, if not more,” he said. “I didn’t have to compromise anything.”
Alnanih said he mastered English as a child by reading books, comics (he’s a Spiderman fan) and watching western movies. Language was not a barrier in his classes because “the language of engineering is the same.”
The main challenge on team projects was the time difference, he said. “It did teach me to be patient!”
Alnanih hopes eventually to work in the field of aerospace or aeronautics and to pursue a doctorate in the U.S.
This was Alnanih’s first visit to the Penn State, though he has traveled to the United States twice before.