Discussions that explore meanings women attach to their educational experiences are unlikely to be found in international organization's reports or government documents coming from the Gulf region. Instead reports tend to gloss over gender inequalities and raise what Ringrose (2007) calls a “successful girl discourse”. In this presentation, I hope to contribute to a growing critical body of literature, that attempts to capture the complexities of the educational settings using ethnographic tools in the Arab world (e.g. Adely, 2012: Herrera, 1992). I argue, such investigations are of importance in a corporatized higher-education setting, where hopes that the “expansion of higher education opportunities, and the spread of credentialism” would lead to “‘development’ in an automatic fashion” are prevalent (Mazawi, 2008, p. 69). This is intensified in Qatar, which has a small national population and growing economic aspirations, making it in need of “human capital”. This investigation therefore employed a combination of qualitative research methods to capture such dynamics. From the focus groups, I found myself intrigued by what Massumi (2002, cited in MacLure 2010, p. 282) calls the “odd beast”; cases that did not fit with the overall shared views in the discussions. I found these women, that did not follow the conventional belief that education was “empowering them” to enter the labor market, had different stories to share. They offered alternative views on what their education meant to them and revealed a shift from perceiving education as a private good to one that views education as a public good—“to provide society with benefits that can be collectively shared” (Labaree, 1997, p. 2). Unfortunately, such voices often get unheard when the institution focuses primarily on the labor market, failing to address non-economic concerns women raise. I conclude by raising questions on the "pedagogical conditions” that can be structured to enable these women to become more visible (Giroux, 2002, p. 451).