Why join such a big event?
The expected answer: to learn and make an impact. The real answer: I don't really know. As I finished my freshman year, which was full of these huge, student-organized events that were highly appreciated by our university, I was filled with enthusiasm. When I saw GSR's recruiting poster, I applied without even thinking it through. I don't even remember what committees I ranked as my top three choices, or how I even ended up in HR
Anyways, I got an interview email and was frightened—in some way even shocked—at why a university event would need interviews to onboard literally young students. After prepping like it was a job or internship interview and getting my acceptance email, I realized it was real: I was going to be working on something entirely new. What even is HR? How do I 'manage' people when I'm barely managing myself? How do I best learn to handle this position? So many questions.
I called my uncle, who works as an HR specialist, and we talked for over an hour and a half as he gave me plenty of advice. I did a lot of research, even psychological, on how to best manage people and perform top-tier HR work, which initially included Performance Management and Member Relations. What made this even scarier was that the committee leader sort of threw us into the deep end and wanted us to learn things from scratch. It meant endless Canva documents, Word documents, spreadsheets, and more boring stuff. Our committee even had the lowest number of members. Sounds really boring, huh?
Working on a "vacation"
As this was a real, global, 'university-trending' kind of event and a huge conference, I was scared that breaks wouldn't be possible and that I would have to be working all day—even while traveling for two weeks to Austria with my family. It was incredibly overwhelming. I wanted to prove myself within my work and produce something truly meaningful, even though I was in an HR committee where my work didn't directly affect the conference itself. I was constantly trying to balance having fun while traveling with working at the same time
I would join two-hour meetings, work on trains, and pull all-nighters. I can say now that this wasn't my best decision, but at the time, I was satisfied with myself. The views of Zell am See's mountains were charming tho, working there is truly charming 🌧️
Sharing some of the HR work
As the leader navigating everything from content creation and event management to jumping into the trenches of marketing and design, calling this an intense undertaking would be an understatement.
The AI bootcamp poster was attached right in front of our chairman's office, showing him our work ☝🏻☝🏻 The messyness right before our event was chilling, like expecting many guests pop up at your house.
GSR Weekend Bootcamps
To be honest, the bootcamps held on different weekends were unforgettable highlights of the GSR journey. The environment was very similar to a startup company, where we worked agilely with hectic conversations, ongoing tasks, and intense brainstorming sessions. The downside, though, was the bad grades I got on the quizzes we had right after—NOT A GOOD MEMORY!
Everyone Knos GSR - Marekting & Recruitng Campaign
Alright, it was time for the real hands-on work to begin. If I'm being honest, we originally planned to host more than eight workshops. It turned out to be way too much on our plates, but as a self-proclaimed workaholic, I just couldn't help myself... Diving into the weeds of those workshops showed us just how much detail mattered, from mapping out technical paths to ensuring every single attendee had seamless access to the necessary source materials, repositories, and files.
One of our most fun collaborations was partnering with the Notion Community at KFUPM. We wanted to step away from traditional tech talks and keep things completely relaxed. This hands-on workshop was just a great excuse to build out our digital workspaces side-by-side and see how everyone customizes their setups.
There's learning about AI, and then there's living it for three days straight. Hosted at the inspiring Montshaat venue, and guided by a phenomenal presenter who had a knack for bringing intricate AI concepts to life. 👾
UI/UXing 🎨
Sometimes the best way to learn is just hanging out with like-minded people. This was the workshop I was most excited about 🎨, given the fact that I'm a geek in visuals and design (awful obseesion btw). We stripped away the pressure of a formal class and just spent the time designing and talking about what makes an interface actually feel good to use.
Our last dance - The Solution Hackathon ⭐️
A hackathon was one of the very first concepts we locked in at the beginning of the semester. Not just because hackathons are awesome, but because our team thrives on the high-stakes pressure of competition. Most importantly, we wanted to spark ✨solutions✨ that tackled actual problems around our university campus. But then, a bigger vision hit us: why limit ourselves? Why not take this to a global scale and connect with international universities? At first, our minds raced with a dozen different global collaborations, but we ultimately decided to anchor our focus, joining forces with UCL and the UCL Saudi Society.
We had the hacakthon hosted over two stages, the first stage was croweded with ideas where teams across different universites innovated and crafted real solutions to eventually qualify to the final stage, the finalies. Between managing the event, the mentors the judges, jumping into workshops, meeting an incredible crowd of builders, and the design and branding of the hacalthon, it was a blur of unforgettable memories. Watching teams pull all-nighters and demo something they built from scratch in 48 hours — that energy is hard to replicate anywhere else.
Our last dance, the finalies.
During the finalies, we hosted students participating from UCL all the way from London to KFUPM. The qualified teams pitched their ideas in front of judges and a big crowd, eventually having three amazing winners from nine different teams.
Signing Off: Content, Events, & Great Friends
Leading content creation and event management for the club has been an absolute highlight of my university journey. Learned a lot, burnt out a lot, especially since I was operating on the global student research conference at the same time. Between the lines of code and late-night study sessions in my "Suffermore year" , getting to collaborate with my closest friends to bring these massive, insightful events to life is what I'll remember the most. It wasn't just about the events and impact we tried to give— it was about the people who showed up every single time and not letting you down, the late planning calls, and the feeling of watching something you built from scratch actually come together. That's the part I'll carry with me.