Arwa Arab PhD2010

Southampton is one of the few universities in the UK to offer a PhD degree in this aspect of psychology. I secured a scholarship to study in England.

Dr Arwa Arab Dr Arwa Arab is heading home to Saudi Arabia for an academic post after graduating from the School of Psychology with a PhD. For her doctorate, she examined how adolescents in her country tackle relationships with parents, teachers and people in authority. She took her first degree in psychology at the King Abdullah Aziz University in Jeddah, taught for two years on the campus, then decided to study abroad because she wanted to specialise in clinical, social and developmental aspects of the subject.

“Southampton is one of the few universities in the UK to offer a PhD degree in this aspect of psychology,” Arwa explains. “I secured a scholarship to study in England; my husband too decided to study for a PhD in Management at Southampton so we moved with our three children.” After five years in Southampton, the south of England feels like a second home. “We have enjoyed our time here very much and will miss all our friends when we get back to our country; we will even miss the weather,” she says. “University life is very different in the UK with its emphasis on research. It wasn’t easy to start with but my lecturers were very supportive and helped me do my best.”

She travelled back to Saudi Arabia to conduct her research and collect data. “It was unfortunate that I was not able to interview young men for my thesis but I was interested to discover more about the attitudes of young women. Many of them told me they wanted more freedom to make their own decisions. In September 2011, she will start work as a lecturer at the King Abdullah Aziz University but she is already busy preparing papers for publication.