American Universities Go Global
| At Education City in Doha, Qatar, the largest concentration of American universities abroad, Khalid al-Sooj, left, talks with a Carnegie Mellon classmate. | |
| A NYIT accounting class in Abu Dhabi has a mix of students from the Gulf and South Asia, reflecting the broad appeal of an American-style education -- and an American degree. | |
| Funded by Qatar's immense oil and gas wealth, Education City -- and the new Texas A&M building -- are part of a 2500 acre campus on the outskirts of Doha, featuring extravagant architecture. | |
| Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, the newest American arrival, joins the Weill Cornell Medical College, Carnegie Mellon University, Texas A&M University, and Virginia Commonwealth University at Education City -- and Northwestern University will soon bring its journalism program. | |
| Serving the mostly Muslim student body in the Gulf, most of the American universities' branch campuses operate from Sunday through Thursday, and include either a prayer room, or a mosque, like this one at George Mason's Ras al Khaimah campus. |  |
| While single-sex classes are the norm at most universities in the Gulf, classes at the American universities, like this interior-design class at NYIT in Abu Dhabi, are coeducational. | |
| The University of Washington, a huge research university, has found its foothold in the Gulf with a modest program in Abu Dhabi, offering short training classes only for Emirati citizens. This human-resources class, mostly for women, is part of a job-training class paid for by the government. | |
| Students at Education City get a taste of American campus life, complete with Pajama Day, foosball, dorm life, and bake sales. | |
| Maryam Bugaje, a Nigerian who hopes to be a doctor, is a dorm supervisor at George Mason in Ras al Khaimah, where the tiny student body is made up almost entirely of expatriates, mostly from neighboring Gulf nations or South Asia. | |
| Mais Taha, right, who is studying to be a petroleum engineer at Texas A&M in Qatar, the largest of the Education City schools, says she is one of the first Qatari women to put on coveralls and go out in the field. | |
| In a nation where Qataris often live quite separately from the expatriates who make up the bulk of the population, students of all nationalities mingle in the cafeteria, dorms and other facilities of Education City. |  |
| Although none of the faculty or administrators at George Mason's Ras al Khaimah branch come from the home campus in Virginia, the portraits on the walls of the administration building serve as a reminder of the U.S. heritage. |  |
| Hundreds of families came to the Education City roadshow at the swank Ritz-Carlton in Doha in October, to hear about what it takes to get one of the 300 seats that the five American universities will have, between them, for next year's freshman class. | |
| Teaching "U.S. Political Systems" at Georgetown's school in Qatar, Gary Wasserman answers tough questions about the Constitution and the First Amendment -- and the ramifications of unfettered free speech. | |
| The faculty for the University of Washington's classes in Abu Dhabi, like this human-resources class, do not come from the university's regular faculty, but are hired and brought to the Gulf on a short-term basis. |  |
| While Qataris make up only about half the student body in Education City, they do have an edge in admissions: Qataris who cannot meet the high American admissions standards when they finish high school are eligible for a bridge program, at the Education City campus, to help improve their skills -- and admissions chances -- for the following year. | |
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