New undergraduates are AIT pioneers

History was made today when twelve students from five
countries attended their first day of classes as undergraduates at AIT
on November 2.

 

Fifty years after eighteen graduate students from three countries
enrolled at the SEATO Graduate School of Engineering, which would later
become the Asian Institute of Technology, a similarly small group of
students from India, Nepal, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand ushered in a
new era for undergraduate education at AIT.

 

Welcomed along with their families by administration officials on
undergraduate Orientation Day on October 29 the newcomers, ranging
from sixteen to twenty years of age, quickly learned the significance
of their decision to attend AIT. “You are all making history as the
first ever batch of undergraduates at AIT,” the Head of the AIT Student
Office Ann Lopez-Fontanilla said.

 

Director of AIT Undergraduate Programs, Associate Professor Nitin
Afzulpurkar, emphasized how special it was that the undergraduates had
arrived on campus during AIT’s golden jubilee year. Recalling that AIT
started small in 1959, he explained that the original class of graduate
students went on to achieve great professional success, with one
student even becoming the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Thailand. “We
believe you are all special in a similar way,” he said.

 

On Orientation Day, the twelve were given a crash course in all
things AIT. Apart from getting an overview of the rules and regulations
of AIT academics, meeting their professors, reviewing their courses and
exploring their class rooms and dormitories, the dozen newcomers heard
what they could expect by living and studying on a multicultural campus
dominated by over 2000 international postgraduate students.

 

“You are pioneers, after fifty years of postgraduate education
only at AIT,” Vice President for Academic Affairs, Prof. Peter Haddawy,
added in his welcome speech.He went on to cite the academic advantages
they would have learning at an institute so highly attuned to
conducting research for application to solving real world problems.
“Taking a good idea and turning it into reality is something we stress
at AIT, and this will be an invaluable skill you will all learn,” he
said. 

 

The new class will study a common curriculum during their first
two years. All have already indicated their preferred field of interest
in engineering. Nine wish to major in ITC, two will focus on
mechatronics and one student will major in electronics. By their third
year, the Pathumthani campus-based students will be joined by AIT
undergraduates currently studying through partnerships in Sri Lanka and
Vietnam. The first ever AIT incoming undergraduate class is expected to
grow to forty students in time for its final graduation in four year’s
time.

Watch video of the
opening ceremony.