Childhood Qandil was born in
Cairo in 1936 to a father from
Menoufia. He was the eldest of five children. Qandil spent much of his childhood and had his primary schooling in the
Nile Delta city of
Tanta. His father had moved the middle-income family to that city, where he owned a few
feddans of land mostly planted with pears and grapes. Qandil's father primarily distributed them to neighbors and others close to him. During Qandil's boyhood, he borrowed and read books from a medical practice and a culture and sporting association in Tanta on a near weekly basis. He also learned
field hockey there. Qandil was at the top of his class throughout his later school years and initially sought to enter the medical profession, a typical career aspiration for students with high marks. His mother particularly encouraged him to become a doctor. Qandil simultaneously took an interest in writing,
Arabic calligraphy and foreign languages.
Journalism career and education Qandil was introduced to journalism when he began writing a secondary school research paper. During that time, he also wrote an article for the low-budget Tanta newspaper
Al Ikhlas, criticizing
King Farouk for spending one million pounds from the treasury to purchase a yacht called the "Mahrousa". He was fired soon after, but had since grown fond of journalism. Due to this new interest and his father's increasingly poor health, Qandil did not complete the first stage of his medical studies, causing his 1952 application to medical school to be rejected. He instead enrolled in the department of geology at
Alexandria University. In July of that year, King Farouk was overthrown by a group of
dissenting officers led by
Gamal Abdel Nasser, leading to the subsequent establishment of a republican system under the presidency of leading officer
Muhammad Naguib. Qandil spent two months studying geology and decided to retake his high school examinations in order to enter into medical school. He performed well and was admitted to
Cairo University's
Qasr El-Ainy Faculty of Medicine in 1953. He continued in his studies until 1956, by which time Nasser had become president. During this period he also joined the
National Guard. Together with some of his fellow students he founded his college's official magazine, which they printed through the
Akhbar el-Yom publishing house. The magazine's first edition was confiscated due to an article Qandil wrote that was critical of university professors and regulations. Shortly after completing his final exams in 1956, Qandil was offered a writing position with ''
Akher Sa'a ("Last Hour") magazine by its owners, the prominent journalists and brothers Mustafa Amin and Ali Amin. Mustafa employed Qandil with a salary of 15 Egyptian pounds and initially tasked him with writing the horoscope and a column that responded to letters from readers. Qandil was asked by Amin to serve as an editor for Akher Sa'a'' in 1961. That year Qandil also attended the
International Union of Students in
Prague,
Czechoslovakia, where he met
Yasser Arafat, then the head of the
General Union of Palestinian Students. Later in 1956 Qandil was accepted into the department of journalism, obtaining a
license (bachelor's degree) in journalism in 1960. Four years later he received a diploma in journalism from the
Berlin Institute. Throughout this period he wrote for the magazine
Al-Tahrir, earning a salary of 25 Egyptian pounds, and also worked with
Al-Jamahir magazine in
Damascus. ==Career in television and the UN==