How a madrasa student from Magura founded a college in Poland

After an orientation event at the British Graduate College of Wroclaw in Poland, a group of students went into a restaurant nearby to please their hungry tummies. They were confused to see a lookalike of their college director and founder serving them as a waiter! To their surprise, they learnt it was indeed their director, Hussin Alam.

Alam, a Bangladeshi immigrant from Magura, went to the UK to study in 2011 as an undergraduate student. Within the span of the next 10 years, he completed an undergraduate and a postgraduate degree in the UK, started studying for a PhD, and founded a higher education institute in Poland. 

Set to defend his PhD thesis soon at the Institute of Political Science of the University of Wroclaw, Poland, Alam did BA (Hons) from the University of Sunderland and his MSc degree in International Business from Canterbury Christ Church University, both in the UK.    

His PhD in political science focuses on the contribution of the social business model to solve social issues. He also worked as a lecturer at the International University of Logistics and Transport and as a Teaching Assistant at the University of Wroclaw. 

He presented his research papers four times at the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) conference, one of the biggest conferences in the world. He was even nominated for the ECPR Rising Star Award in 2020 and was a panel chair of the ECPR Conference 2022, at Innsbruck University, Austria. 

Early life struggles 

His extraordinary achievements become even more incredible given that he did not come from a privileged background. Hussin Alam is the epitome of a self-made man. 

From Ghullia (a poor village in Magura where the literacy rate is 15-20%) to the University of Wroclaw, which produced nine Nobel laureates in its more than 300-year rich history, it has been quite a journey for Alam, who talked about his struggles and successes with the Business Standard over a Zoom interview.
 
"As a child, I wanted to become a doctor. Unfortunately, the nearest high school was 8km away from my village", said Alam. So, he studied at Ghullia Dakhil Madrasa near home and completed Dakhil (10th Grade) from there in 2005. His commitment to studies was obvious from childhood as he stood first in most classes.
 
After passing Alim (12th grade) from Magura Siddiqia Kamil Madrasah, he did BEd Honours at Dhaka's Teachers Training College. However, Alam's frustration with session delays at Bangladesh's university motivated him to look for options abroad. "Besides, it was very difficult to get a good job without political lobbying," he said. 

Alam used all the money he saved up from his private tutoring income and help from family to go to Warnborough College, Canterbury, UK, where he was accepted. But while in Dhaka, he had also bought some stocks with his income which helped with paying his fees.
 
After arriving in the UK in 2011, Alam lived in a £250 a month room that he shared with four others. He also started working as a kitchen porter at a restaurant. But it was a very busy restaurant, making it very challenging to manage work and study. It became impossible to study while working as a porter. So, after a few months, he started working as a waiter at that restaurant. 

Academic excellence 

One year after beginning his studies at Warnborough College, he moved to the University of Sunderland to pursue a bachelor's degree. He rowed three jobs at once to pay for university and accommodation: a 2-hour cleaning job in the morning, a job as a hospitality assistant at Kent University and a managing job at a restaurant in the afternoon. Further, he learned to drive and did delivery work sometimes. 

Due to the pressure of so much work and studies, he never got enough sleep. "When I commuted from Canterbury to Sunderland University for classes I would take naps on the train."

After completing his master's, his PhD proposal was accepted by two universities in the UK. However, without a scholarship, he couldn't do a PhD there, so he came back to Bangladesh in 2016. Later his PhD proposal was accepted by universities in Switzerland, France, Spain and Poland. Finally, in 2017, he joined the University of Wroclaw, Poland.

He opened his PhD procedure in only 4 months and 15 days which is a rigorous process and can require multiple journal publications. He also received two consecutive best student rector scholarships for article publications in renowned journals and paper presentations at international conferences.

To date, he has published seven articles and presented research papers at more than 30 international conferences. Recently his two book chapters have been published by IGI Global publisher, a leading international academic publisher based in the US. One of the chapters is "Role of technology in formal education in Bangladesh", and the other is "Role of Economics and the Contribution of Grameen Bank." 

Founding the British Graduate College, Wroclaw

Despite his tremendous academic successes, Alam's drive for achieving greatness was not satiated. He wanted to do even bigger things. This led him this year to found the British Graduate College, Wroclaw in Poland. 

"I realised that my contribution to society will be limited to regular jobs. But I wanted to do something that would contribute to a larger scale and leave a legacy when I die," said Alam. 

He has announced a programme through the college under which a poor and meritorious student from Bangladesh will get a fully funded scholarship every year.

His grand visions, however, did not make him forget his humble beginning. "I am a PhD, a college director and a restaurant waiter. I have three different roles in three different places, and I perform them accordingly," said Alam.