Bioengineering Student Takes Management Consulting Co-op in Saudi Arabia
Third-year bioengineering student Yousif Elaidi is developing management and consulting skills on a co-op in Saudi Arabia, which he sees as transformed from his childhood visits into an international crossroad for businesses from multiple regions.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Cyrus Moulton. Main photo: Yousif Elaidi is on co-op at a management consulting company in Saudi Arabia, the country where his mother is from and where many of her family live. Courtesy Photo
Bioengineering student switches gears on co-op, ‘diving in’ with business consulting in Saudi Arabia
As a third-year bioengineering student at Northeastern University, Yousif Elaidi has plenty of experience working in a lab.
So for his current co-op, he decided to take on something completely different: management consulting.
“I like how in consulting there is a lot of traveling and there’s a lot of talking to people and it’s very social,” Elaidi says. “It’s really team based — you’re bouncing off ideas, and you always have to think of new ideas.”
Elaidi is on co-op with Wisdom Management Consultancy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The co-op is somewhat of a homecoming for Elaidi; his mother is Saudi, and he grew up traveling from his home in New Hampshire to spend summers in the kingdom.
But Elaidi says that he is experiencing a different Saudi Arabia than the “closed off” place he remembers as a child.
“Saudi is totally flipped upside down,” Elaidi says. “The country is totally changed — it’s people coming from outside, there’s a lot of foreigners, there’s a lot of stuff to do, there’s a lot of activities — in terms of the new Saudi Arabia I’m still getting used to it.”
Getting into the business community at such an international crossroads has taught Elaidi a lot about how different cultures interact.
Read full story at Northeastern Global News