Press Release

ALKHOBAR | Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: Group of PMU students visited KPMG; one of the top four global accounting firms recently. “PMU’s College of Business and Career Services Section of Student Affairs Division moderated the study tour with the dual objectives—to expose the finance and accounting students to corporate world for practical career specific learning and to showcase their capabilities to such firms that look for candidates with strong professional knowledge and leadership skills.”

Chair of the Finance and Accounting Department of this College, Dr. Dawood Ashraf informed that the students got opportunity to understand accounting practices and their application in corporate setups.

PMU bridges gaps between the academia and industry since its inception. Exposing students to various departments of KPMG helped them gain knowledge about practical developments in accounting area.

“With keeping current needs and changing trends under consideration the College of Business arranged this study tour,” said College Coordinator, Dr. Emmanuel Ntui.

College of Business in PMU offers undergraduate programs in Accounting, Finance, Human Resource Management and Business Administration besides an Executive Master of Business Administration program. Academic knowledge with industry oriented approach is the backbone of these programs.

“Steps are taken for more internship and co-op programs with leading institutions to hone students’ skills in the respective specializations,” explained Dr. Ashraf further. “Students have show keen interest in pursuing the Tsokba training program with KPMG specialized to train the Saudi graduates to becomes public accountants, he said.

KPMG Managing Partner in Al-Khobar Anthony Hambleton inaugurated and explained the Audit Service accomplishments. Director of KPMG, Gaffer Biswas and Manager, Abdulaziz Alshanfari and Yousef Alyacoob described Tax & Zakat and the Advisory Services. This tour ended with a question & answer session with the visiting students.

PMU cements theory and practice through encouraging students’ participation in real work environment. The visit augured them to learn practical aspects associated with accounting. It exposed them to Saudi Arabian corporate culture. The students learnt many facets of industry that help them explore new market trends and to find career opportunities in accounting and finance.

Al-Khobar | Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: Group of students and faculty members from the Department of Electrical Engineering at the College of Engineering in Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University (PMU) visited SEC West Khobar 115kV/13.8kV High-voltage Electricity Substation for field study.

“This team comprised of students and faculty members,” said College’s Assistant Professor, Dr Noureddine Harid. “Students were exposed to industry through field activity as part of the curricula requirement of electric power courses this university runs, he said further.

External Relations Representative of SEC Al-Khobar, Mr Ali Al-Jumaian and a group of substation engineers welcomed them and guided in the field study. They were exposed to practical aspects such as studying the SEC transmission and distribution network functionalities in the Eastern Province. They learned operational characteristics of this substation.

“This visit helped us explore the electric distribution system better. It combined information on SEC Grid and transmission network,” one of the participating students expressed his views.

A debate session was also arranged which concluded with Question and Answer session. Excited students acquired practical knowledge with getting opportunity to spend time with industry experts. They received practical information which is necessary for electric power engineering courses.

“PMU maintains amicable relation with industry and assumes SEC Al-Khobar a partner to collaborate with which nourish the budding engineers through field training,” said the College Dean, Dr. Jamal Nayfeh.

The team toured the substation and observed its equipment operation—transformers, capacitor banks, busbars and surge arresters. This substation was recently built and uses advanced Gas Insulated Switchgear (GIS) technology with modern over-current and differential protection schemes.