What's Been and What's Ben

Here are some interesting facts that I have been told by King Abdullah University of Science and Techn0logy (KAUST) officials. I ship out august 16 – 20th-ish. I don’t yet have my visa, plane tickets, or know how to get stuff over there. I realized at my recent Mexico City pre-departure event that I had a bit more to go on than the people who just got in versus my year and a half (1st cycle/iPod scholars).

• public school in KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia)
• 75% of student body is non-Saudi
• 300 students in first class
• 2000 students total at maturity
• 80 faculty
• no religious police on campus
• internet filter, but not KSA internet filter
• 222 Teraflop supercomputer
• Maps lack Persian Gulf and Israel
• individual student apartments: fully furnished (towels and silverware), nice TV w/ satellite, washer/dryer, full kitchen, 1 or 1.5 bathrooms, queen size bed, den, and air-conditioning of course!
• no religious police on campus without president’s okay
• full medical (and dental) coverage by US and British doctors
• No formal language training in Arabic except in January, so far
• K-12 schooling done with IB (international baccalaureate) programme
• Dress code for class: business casual light
• speedos: speedon’t
• ladies: one-piece or conservative two-piece
• go to a private club for skimpier outfits (not official advise)
• marine scienes students go to WHOI for a while until their stuff is built
• 50 – 60, 000 construction workers working on site