Page 33 - PresidentReport2024Portrait

Bruria Ben Shahar Bruria is just 28 years old, but she is already married with three
Nour Afghani children and working towards a Ph.D. in Computer Science. That
is an impressive achievement, especially for an ultra-Orthodox
woman. Bruria earned her B.Sc. in Computer Science at HAC’s
Strauss Campus. "Immediately upon graduating,” she recalls, “I
was given the opportunity to stand in front of a class and teach;
I don’t take that for granted.” Bruria continued to earn an M.Sc.
at HAC’s main campus. Luckily, many courses were on Zoom
because of COVID-19 , making it easier for her to cope with the
challenges of studying in a secular atmosphere. Later, a professor
in the Department referred Bruria to her own thesis supervisor
at Ben Gurion University, and Bruria decided to follow her dream
of an academic career rather than pursue a job in hi-tech. Today,
after teaching for five years at HAC's Strauss Campus, she is now
working for her thesis advisor. Bruria recently presented the subject
of their work - as well as her doctoral thesis, entitled - a "Clinical
Decision Support System" (CDSS), at the annual conference of the
Israeli Association for Medical Informatics (ILAMI).

“HAC is a home and a family,‘’ she says. “The faculty and
administration are constantly thinking of how they can best
support students without lowering academic standards. My
classmates landed great jobs at Mobileye and Intel, among other
companies.”

Nour, who is from East Jerusalem, began her B.A. in Behavioral
Science in 2019, and a large part of her studies was characterized
by remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the
fact that she did not complete the intensive Hebrew language
pre-academic program, Nour overcame the language challenges
with flying colors. Today, Nour manages a successful program
that promotes social skills for over 60 East Jerusalem high-school
students. As part of her responsibilities, she oversees university
and college students from across Jerusalem who volunteer in
the program to fulfill their community service requirements. In
addition, Nour works in HAC’s Career Counseling Center and
advises young Arab-Israeli students during their studies at the
College.

Nour wants to put her experience to further use and hopes to
become an educational guidance counselor for young adults (ages
18-30). She enrolled in the M.A. degree program in Educational
Counseling at The Hebrew University, and hopes to be accepted.
“Studies at HAC were difficult, but I see that I have a much
better grasp of the language than other students who studied at
the University. Arab students often come to HAC from other
Arab institutions of higher education, where the system is vastly
different, and therefore the support that HAC gives its students is
invaluable, especially in the first year of studies,” she says.

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