Kuwaiti Student Follows in Father's Footsteps to be an International Jayhawk

From the smell of Lippincott Hall to the lush green of the summer trees, memories flooded back to Hussain Arab when he dropped off his son Abdulaziz at KU in August.

“My memory is full of all the rich, little details. I remember the scents and the sounds. Now 28 years later, I bring my son and I am so full of passion. I hope that he also loves the place as I do,” said Arab, who graduated from KU in 1999 with a degree in petroleum engineering.

From Kuwait City, Kuwait, Arab describes his arrival to the United States and first day at KU as magical. Flying into the Kansas City International Airport in January 1995, Arab was warmly greeted by Mark Algren, former director of the Applied English Center. In a minivan with three other students, the group went back to Lawrence to check in at Templin Hall. Arab then headed to his dorm room for some much-needed sleep after a long flight.

“The next morning, I look out the window and it’s completely white,” Arab said. “I honestly had never seen snow before. The trees were almost naked, and you could see all the little branches covered in snow. It was beautiful.”

The son of an ambulance driver and homemaker, Arab wanted to study in the United States because of the country’s reputation as a pioneer in the field of petroleum engineering. A friend suggested he enroll at the Colorado School of Mines. But when Arab received a government scholarship to study abroad, the Kuwait Ministry of Higher Education decided he would attend KU.

“I was so lucky to go to KU,” Arab said.

Arab spent the spring and summer semesters in the AEC and another four yours in KU’s petroleum engineering program, studying under leaders in the field, such as professors Don Green, Paul Willhite and Russ Ostermann.

During his time at KU, Arab remembers spending long hours in the lab, his first taste of Chinese food, the cheeseburgers served in the dorm’s cafeteria and the blooming spring trees. He played soccer on campus fields, fished at Clinton Lake and bowled with his friends. But what has stuck with him the longest is the sense of community he felt.

“My experience at KU was priceless,” Arab said. “There is fairness, there is rule of law, the peacefulness of the place, it is a clean city, that is imprinted on me.”

After graduating from KU, Arab started as a field engineer for the Kuwait Oil Company, rotating throughout the country’s oil fields. He traveled to Scotland to earn a master’s degree from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and a doctorate degree from Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen.

Today, Arab is a team leader in strategic planning, overseeing strategy and working with the midterm plan for surface and drilling projects and the company’s energy transition plan to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.

“I don’t go to the fields anymore, mostly I’m behind my laptop, looking at graphs and timelines, looking at what projects are coming, what projects are delayed, capital, operations and human development,” Arab said.

Over the years, Arab shared his passion for KU with his children, along with his desire for them to study abroad. When his third child, Abdulaziz, graduated from high school and was awarded a government scholarship to study in the United States, he followed in his father’s footsteps.

Abdulaziz is currently enrolled at the Applied English Center and has plans to enter the computer science program. Just like his father, he too is taken by the contrast of Lawrence’s lush green landscape to the desert of Kuwait, as well as the friendliness of the Lawrence community.

“He ended up having the best years of his life here, maybe I’ll have the same,” Abdulaziz said.

For his part, Arab said he is thrilled that Abdulaziz can experience KU as he did and that he has a reason to return.

“The way that I have talked about KU is amazingly special. It’s as if I own a part of it, I’m so passionate about it,” Arab said. “I’m so happy that Aziz also has this and is able to see and sense what I was talking about. I can see he already likes the place and that makes me feel good.”