Hello everyone!

My name is Mahrukh Khan and like a lot of the people in this course, I am an immigrant in Canada too. I finished my high school from Dhaka, Bangladesh and then moved in Toronto with my family to start my post secondary education at UTSC. I am currently in my 3rd year and doing a double major in International Development Studies and Health Policy and minor in Economics.I almost had my mind set into studying accounting during my high school years, when I finally decided that I would like to work in the field of development, hence chose this program.Other than English I speak Bangla and Hindi and partly understand Urdu.

Having taken a variety of International Development studies course, this course stood out from all of them and therefore caught my attention. I wanted to know more about the means of communication in development and the knowledge required to work in this field. I was also curious about how technology can be used in development which is why I took this course. Moreover having grown up in a third world country, the idea of integrating technology with development was completely new to me. This concept is still emphasized on as much in development projects, although access to internet has grown largely in the the Southern part of Asia.

As an active learner I hope to gain the knowledge of how technology can be integrated with development. I want to enhance my online communicating skills and know more about the various means of communicating with the people. I also think this would allow me to move away from the conventional style of learning and try a new method ad be comfortable with it. Moreover as an active learner I hope to participate more and get the opportunity to know about various views my fellow classmates would have. Participatory classes are slightly out of my comfort zone which is why I also hope to be able to work on this skill.

The skill I might bring to this course and which would be relevant are my interacting skills. I enjoy working with people and getting to know their stand points in various issues and engaging in discussions. I hope to further enhance my participation and interactive skills both in person and through online communication. Looking forward to learning a whole lot of new stuff in this class :)