In keeping with its vision to enrich society through transformative educational experiences, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS) at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) has concluded its ‘Stay at Home’ webinar series. 

Taking place between July 5 and 19, the webinars provided online audiences with an opportunity to learn more about the work of the CHSS and its Translation and Interpreting Institute. The series began with Intercultural Communication in the Virtual Classroom, which looked at tools educators can use to support their students during stressful times without losing sight of diverse cultural needs. This was followed by The Good and the Bad of English Arabic MT, which considered the pros and cons of English-Arabic machine translation engines. Notable differences between machine, computer assisted and human translation were also highlighted. 

The third webinar, Interpreting: Mode, Pleasures and Pains, provided a general overview of the practice of interpreting, as well as tips on note taking, translation booth manners, and more. The dos and don’ts of a good CV was the overarching theme of Resume and CV Writing: Tips and Tricks. Developed with HBKU students in mind, the webinar also offered practical advice on layout, design, structure and content. The series concluded with How Did Egyptian Filmmakers Represent Epidemics? with a discussion on the notoriously difficult subject of portraying the outbreak of epidemics in film. 

Speaking after the conclusion of the final webinar, Dr. Amal Al-Malki, Founding Dean, CHSS, said: “COVID-19 has generated its fair share of hashtags, most notably calls to ‘stay at home.’ In keeping with the rest of HBKU, we’ve strived to counter this message by emphasizing that ‘learning never stops.’ To this end, our webinar series was a chance to present a snapshot of our research activities and interests to a diverse online audience. Engagement levels were consistently high across all webinars, as were the numbers tuning in to each session.”

The College of Humanities and Social Sciences regularly holds events to highlight its research activities and projects. For more information, please visit chss.hbku.edu.qa.