Against the backdrop of the Syrian civil war, Ahmad Alsattouf completed his bachelor of science in mechatronics at Aleppo University. Last year he fled the country and ended up in the Netherlands.
Six years after starting his education in mechatronics engineering, Ahmad Alsattouf imagined himself to be working on his master’s degree, maybe even preparing for his PhD. Instead he has spent most of the past six months in a large tent in Nijmegen, herded together with seven other people in a cubicle whose only decor is bunk beds, unable to work or study.
Until last year, Alsattouf had lived almost his entire life with his family in Aleppo, the second largest city in Syria. After finishing high school, he decided to enrol in the five-year bachelor’s programme in mechatronics engineering at Aleppo University. Then, in 2011, civil war broke out. At first Alsattouf didn’t expect it to have much of an impact on his life: ‘In the first and second year of the war, we were expecting it to end at any moment.’
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