Student Stories: Rimas Al Drabkih

Interviewer:

Rouxbin Smit, Editorial & Community Manager, BE

Interviewee:

Rimas Al-Drabkih, Youth Engagement Task Force, Ambassador, BE

Hi Rimas, just as a short introduction could you tell us where are you from and what do you imagine yourself in the future to be?

Hello Rouxbin! I am from Jordan, specifically Ajloun which is a city in Jordan, and I aspire to be an entrepreneur in the future.

So, before we get into the heavy stuff, we have prepared a mini segment, asking you for words one would use to describe you, in order to give our readers a better insight as to who you are as a person. Shall we begin?

Absolutely! Knowing you, I’m sure they’d be fun to answer!

Great! First, what is one word you would use to describe yourself?

Limitless.

I’m not a study person and I don’t like to just sit at home. I’m a very active person. It’s like, whenever there’s something new, a new challenge or anything really, anything creative and out of the box…I like to keep challenging myself with things like that. I would wake up every single day and just be like, “What’s my challenge for today?”, and this just developed into a habit of mine, just asking myself, ‘what shall I do today?’. To be honest, I’ve always been like that and I have this energy that just spreads around the house. Even the dream I’ve set for myself, to become an entrepreneur in the world of AI, it’s a challenge yeah, but I’m seeing myself there and that just makes me set even more goals for myself. So yeah, Limitless is the word I would use to describe myself.

Okay, second, what is one word you think your friends would use to describe you?

Trustworthy and Loyal

Okay, so for this one, I’d get more on the personality side. I would say a lot of my friends told me that I’m trustworthy and these two words like, trustworthy and loyal. I think they would also say that I’m a good secret keeper because I always try to support the person that I’m with by listening to them and hearing them out and keeping their secrets.

That is amazing! Okay, so this is the last one, what is one word about how you would like to be remembered?

Optimistic.

I would say I would like people to remember me as optimistic. I like to spread positive and good vibes around any room that I enter and I hate the negative vibes that some people just emanate, which is also, in essence, the reason why I carefully choose the people I surround myself with.

So, 3 words to describe you would be limitless, trustworthy, and optimistic, that’s interesting! Moving on, I recall you mentioning wanting to be an entrepreneur and exploring the field of AI. Can you elaborate on what got you interested in doing this and how has it been going for you?

Of course, to be honest with you I never thought that AI was for me. I took British curriculum A-level subjects and so to say, I just took Business Studies, Economics and ICT — as something that’s there. I thought I’d link all those subjects together, choose my major course for Uni in accordance with that and just continue with what I found interesting in that after, but then my dad drew my attention to AI. Curious, I then researched and completed some courses online, about the same, last year.

 Courses based on AI digital skills, machine learning and even machine intelligence. That is when I got the idea of becoming an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur that operates in the Global Industry of AI. Because all the courses I did were based on different sectors, sectors like Hospitality, Medicine and Business (my focus) and essentially the fact that anything in this world CAN be supported by AI, I thought why not become one, an entrepreneur that is, because in Jordan, we don’t have many women who become business women and entrepreneurs, so I was like,

‘I want to be the first one, I want to be a young person that operates in this world, that opens a business in her interest, and thinks outside the box’.

 And you know, during the courses I took, I never just listened, I would keep my notepad open and would keep jotting down ideas that came to me, new ideas, about things that weren’t yet made. I wrote all my ideas in there. So you know, this is not something that I’m just interested in and will keep it to work on later in life, but rather something that I’m interested in right now and I’m working, right now, to build the skills and competencies I would require going forwards.

Do you have any favorite Book/Movie/ TV Series/Social media accounts that you can share with us right now?

It’s a book titled – The Magic Of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz. It’s my favorite book and I actually have it here with me right now. I used this book a lot when I was giving my A-Level Exams.

What about the book helped you?

So the book was based on the idea of our brain being divided into two parts; a positive part and a negative part, and the idea was that whatever you feed into your brain; thoughts, pictures, words or even songs and movies, should essentially be positive and additive to your growth in order for your mindset, and eventually you, to grow and bloom. To give you an example, when one sets a goal for themselves, they’ve inputted that thought into their minds, so the next time one finds it difficult to tackle a situation, their brain reminds them of the thought they inputted about their goal, helping them push through and making it possible for one to dream big in their life.

That is definitely a very unique idea! I must say I feel a bit inspired myself too! Next question, what is something about you that few people know?

No matter how extroverted you think I am, I’m not that extroverted.

What is something you want to see more of in the world?

More people being themselves. You know what I would love to see, people responding, reacting, thinking and doing more things with their hearts rather than their mind or brain. I feel like everyone should work with their emotions – upto a certain extent – and not let their brain control how they feel or control how they should do things. I believe doing things the way the heart wants is the best way to do things.

So yeah, I would love to see more love in the world, if you get what I mean. Like, when I work with my heart I’m not selfish, I’m not just taking things for myself and I’m still productive. I want everyone to love each other and be like a really small family, especially after COVID where we all saw how everyone was working against each other and being so harsh and unpleasant to each other. I saw how people changed after COVID and it’s so surprising, how everyone is now kind of selfish and how they keep wanting things for themselves rather than wishing equal happiness for everyone. 

Nobody wishes joy to people other than themselves nowadays, if someone gets a better grade or a better thing or even a better life than them, they would go on being jealous of their happiness and wish them all the hate and honestly, I would just love, love people to work with their hearts and love and be more happy and just spread that joy, because I know that life can be hard sometimes but at the end of the day, I think if we can just be a little more flexible, I think every day would be a little more easier for every one of us, if you get what I mean.

Do you have something in particular about your life that you wish to highlight through this interview? It could be a project that you’re working on, or towards as well.

Working with you guys at Beyond Education. Okay, so this might sound like a very cliche answer, but I love, love working with you guys at Beyond Education. When I started working here, I kept telling my counselor how I really really loved working here and how I always kind of unwinded when I talked to you guys. And honestly, I always feel so very happy after any meeting that I have with all the community members, because I feel like there is something really nice in this world, like everyone in the community is so nice to me. You’ve given me the opportunity to embrace myself, to talk to other people and gain multiple experiences and skills so yeah, working with BE would definitely be something I want to highlight!

Wow! I’m pretty sure that’s going to sound scripted haha but how has this experience, which is BE in this case, or working with us, challenged the way that you view the world?

I was introverted and kind of always into myself, whenever it came to talking to new people, I remember, I used to get so scared, but with BE I improved a lot of my public speaking skills, especially my communication skills. I still remember our first meeting and I was like Oh My God! I was so surprised, it felt like meeting with a completely different Rimas! I am able to talk freely with everyone now and I think this was the thing that encouraged me to do my speech and my graduation. For some reason, a couple of months ago, my school faculty called me telling me they wanted me to do the graduation speech for our batch. Of course, I did tell them that I would do it, but since I was so nervous about speaking in public, I also informed them, telling them I’d confirm on a later date. So literally a week before my graduation – I kind of forgot about it – I was like okay! *claps hands* I’m gonna do it, no matter what happens. Of course, I was a bit afraid at the beginning, I was like ‘No, I can’t talk, I don’t think I can do it!’, but then I just tried to recall how comfortably I could express myself with you guys during meetings and so I tried to bring that same confidence in me on stage and I was able to speak so much more comfortably after. I spoke for three plus minutes and I felt so happy, everyone was cheering me up and it was like the best feeling ever!

Last BE question, which one of the 12 competencies have you improved and which do you want to improve? Communication & Growth Mindset, and Courage is the one I’d love to improve upon.

So Courage, Courage is just because I feel like I don’t really have a lot of courage. I want to be more brave. I want to be more brave in taking action, if that makes sense. Like, ‘Come On, Yeah!’ I want to be able to take on anything, especially since I tend to rethink things twice a lot, and so I do need courage, because I don’t really want to go back and say ‘Oh! I should have done this instead!’ It was so wonderful to know how positive your experience at BE has been! I hope it continues to remain the same!

Next question, who is your inspiration? Or rather, who are the people that help you stay motivated?

My Father

Yeah, my dad is, my dad is my number one motivator and the person whom I will always look up to no matter how close I am to my mom. Yes, my mom is like my best friend, but my dad is the person who is always there for me. He is the person I always go to whenever I have a doubt or a question, or whenever I finally find an answer to something. My dad is a businessman and that’s also one of the reasons I look up to him. He has all these skills and he also, pretty much, the same as I am, except that he’s a man. He is always so open and you know, just the person to talk to, because he gives such good advice.

Also, when he wants to motivate me he always motivates me in an indirect manner, without me actually feeling it, so it’s never in an overly cliche manner, you know. He won’t say, ‘Oh! Don’t be sad!’ or like, ‘These things will always happen in life’, whenever he notices I’m upset or angry. He lifts me up and motivates me in a way that no one else does. So yeah, my dad is special, he’s so special to me.

That is so sweet Rimas! And on an emotional note, we are now wrapping up so one

last question: what are you most proud of in your life?

I am most proud about how responsible I am. 

I have a lot of younger siblings, to be specific, three – one boy and two girls – and being the closest to a second mother figure to them has taught me about being responsible as well as the responsibility I carry when it comes to them and the fact that I am the one bridging the gap between them and my parents, helps with that. So yeah, I am proud of my ability to be their best friend but still carry their responsibility :)) Amazing! It was so great to be able to talk to you and know you like this Rimas! I’m sure the readers will enjoy it too!

Thank you so much to Rimas for talking to us and sharing with us who you are!

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