Dalhousie coding camp helps Syrian students transition to life in Canada

While many students are trying to enjoy their last few weeks of summer freedom, some of Halifax’s newest residents are gathering in a computer lab at Dalhousie University.

The Syrian Student Society, in partnership with the Faculty of Computer Science, is offering a free coding camp to Syrians interested in attending university.

The week-long camp is giving students the opportunity to learn how to build basic websites using HTML, CSS and Javascript. Camp organizers hope the experience will give newcomers a taste of university life, and an idea of how a degree in computer science could benefit them in the future.

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“We wanted to do something for Syrians, and me coming from a computer science background, we also wanted to attract people to computer science,” said Yaser Alkayale, president of the Syrian Student Society and university innovation fellow.

“What better than to invite all the Syrian newcomers.”

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Alkayale said he wasn’t sure how many people would show up when the camp started on Monday, but was pleased to see upwards of 25 people on the first day, with more trickling in throughout the week.

“We’ve actually invited everyone, whoever’s Syrian that wants to come and learn about coding and programming. Most people are around 20 years of age, but we have a few who are over 50 and we have a few who are 13, 14,” he said.

Most of the students are new to Canada and are still in the early stages of learning to speak English. While the camp is taught in both English and Arabic, computer language it its own entity.

“It is great for the newcomers because you don’t need English, per se, to learn all the coding languages,” said Alkayale.

“It’s actually a great way for them to get started in their careers early without having to get to a certain level of English.”

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Dana Melli arrived in Halifax from Jordan seven months ago. The 20-year-old is planning to attend university within the next year and hopes to one day be a pharmacist.

“I came here to learn more about computer science,” said Melli. “The world is developing and computers are very important to everyone. If you know how to use computer, it helps you to create new things.”

She said while her English is good, others are in the early stages of grasping the language. Luckily, it doesn’t interfere with their ability to learn coding languages.

“There are many students who just came here recently so they don’t have any ideas about English language, just maybe a little bit,” she said. “If you want to use computer, you don’t need to know English at a high level.”

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Alkayale said he was also encouraged to see more than half the participants were women.

“In computer science right now we have a problem. We have around 13 per cent female popular in the faculty of computer science and our goal is actually to increase that,” said Alkayale.

“It’s amazing to see all these newcomers interested in computer science. It’s fantastic to see them all in here.”

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Alkayale founded the Syrian Student Society earlier this year. He said while there are only a few Syrian newcomers currently attending the university, he hopes the society will create a foundation for high school students.

“This is going to create a base for them that they can look up to when they get into university so they have a support system, they have a support group that they can go to where they can get help,” he said.

“Either for language barriers or not understanding how the system works, they can come to us and then they can ask for help.”

Alkayale said he would like to start a series of weekly coding workshops for Syrian students and is looking for funding to help pay for teaching assistants.

“We get a lot of support from the faculty, they’re providing the space for free, they provided all the food for us for this week,” he said. “But, we would love to get funding from any organization who is willing to fund us to help all these students get started not just in computer science, but to help them get into university.”