The Star Students Of The Islamic Republic
News Week
23-Aug-2010 (5 comments)

In 2003, administrators at Stanford University's Electrical Engineering Department were startled when a group of foreign students aced the notoriously difficult Ph.D. entrance exam, getting some of the highest scores ever. That the whiz kids weren't American wasn't odd; students from Asia and elsewhere excel in U.S. programs. The surprising thing, say Stanford administrators, is that the majority came from one country and one school: Sharif University of Science and Technology in Iran.

Stanford has become a favorite destination of Sharif grads. Bruce A. Wooley, a former chair of the Electrical Engineering Department, has said that's because Sharif now has one of the best undergraduate electrical-engineering programs in the world. That's no small praise given its competition: MIT, Caltech and Stanford in the United States, Tsinghua in China and Cambridge in Britain.

Sharif's reputation highlights how while Iran makes headlines for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's incendiary remarks and its nuclear showdown with the United States, Iranian students are developing an international reputation as science superstars. Stanford's administrators aren't the only ones to notice. Universities across Canada and Australia, where visa restrictions are lower, report a big boom in the Iranian recruits; Canada has seen its total number of Iranian students grow 240 percent since 1985, while Australian press reports point to a fivefold increase over the past five years, to nearly... >>>

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thexmaster

This is what happens to star students in IRI's Iran

by thexmaster on Mon Aug 23, 2010 04:55 PM PDT


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Anonymouse

Yolanda interesting you remembered Vahidnia as being from Sharif

by Anonymouse on Mon Aug 23, 2010 04:28 PM PDT

Everything is sacred


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yolanda

....

by yolanda on Mon Aug 23, 2010 01:39 PM PDT

Thank you for posting this great article that praises the bright Iranian students and denouces IRI. Last year, Vahidnia criticized Khamenei in public after the election, he is from Sharif University. I like the fact that the article mentinoned Avicenna, Omar Khayyam, and Al Kharizmi.

Thank you!


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Maryam Hojjat

Down with IRI/IRR

by Maryam Hojjat on Mon Aug 23, 2010 11:56 AM PDT

We are losing everything with these criminal anti-Iranian bastards.


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Anonymouse

Predatory government officials demand a cut of their profits

by Anonymouse on Mon Aug 23, 2010 08:20 AM PDT

Several Sharif alumni point to one other powerful motivator. "When you live in Iran and you see all the frustrations of daily life, you dream of leaving the country, and your books and studies become a ticket to a better life," says one who asked not to be identified. "It becomes more than just studying," he says. "It becomes an obsession, where you wake up at 4 a.m. just to get in a few more hours before class."

Iran's success, in other words, is also the country's tragedy: students want nothing more than to get away the moment they graduate. That's a boon for foreign universities and tech firms but a serious source of brain drain for the Islamic republic. There simply are not enough quality jobs for graduates in Iran, says Ramin Farjad Rad, another Sharif grad ('97) who's now an executive at Aquantia in Silicon Valley. What's worse, star students who stay in Iran and try to launch businesses complain that predatory government officials demand a cut of their profits or impose unnecessary obstacles. Thus many Iranians who can't make it to the West head to Dubai instead. As one Sharif grad in the Persian Gulf port city puts it, "Here, our education is properly valued. We are given freedom to succeed. In Iran, we are blocked."

Such frustrations augur ill for Iran's future. True, it's produced a startling number of top students in recent years. And the country's history is rich with achievement, featuring Avicenna (also known as Ibn Sina), the medieval world's greatest scientist; Muhammad al-Khwarizmi, the ninth-century inventor of the mathematical algorithm (the basis of computer science), and Omar Khayyam, the famed mathematician and astronomer. That's a fine legacy. But unless the Islamic republic changes directions soon, all of that history and potential could be squandered.

 

Everything is sacred


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