Muhammad Saqib

Every entry-level job listing seems to want the same impossible thing: one to two years of experience, aimed squarely at candidates who are 22 and have never had a job. It’s the catch-22 every fresh graduate runs into, and it doesn’t resolve itself just because a degree is good and the grades are decent. One … Read more

Dera Ghazi Khan shows up in policy documents under “underserved regions” far more often than it shows up in anything written about career options for young people actually living there. One story from the city: a failed first attempt at FA exams, followed by a year that wasn’t a gap year in any planned sense … Read more

Private IT bootcamps in Pakistan routinely charge Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 150,000 for the same web development and freelancing skills that show up constantly in online course ads. For a student who’s just finished FSc with decent marks but no money for a four-year degree, that price tag closes the door before it opens. That … Read more

Rs. 28,000 per semester at a public university is manageable for many households. For a family running on a combined income of around Rs. 30,000 a month — a father working as a daily wage sweeper, a mother doing domestic work in a few nearby houses — it wasn’t. The obvious first step was HEC’s … Read more

Being eligible for the HEC Need-Based Scholarship and actually being selected for it are two different things — a distinction most guides skip entirely, and one that cost one applicant two rejected applications before it clicked. Her family’s income was below the threshold both times. Eligibility was never the problem. What got her rejected was … Read more

Three years ago, a student I know named Omer got into one of Pakistan’s top engineering universities on merit. His family celebrated. His mother cried. His younger siblings thought he was going to change everything for the family. Then the fee challan arrived. Rs. 42,000 per semester. Times 8 semesters. That’s Rs. 336,000 in tuition … Read more