What's Been and What's Ben

KAUST: King Abdullah University of Science and Technology

11/09/07  I applied for the scholarship.

01/11/08  I had an interview in Washington, D.C.

02/24/08  I signed up after seeing the Colbert portrait

08/22/08  I went to DC for creativity training

01/04/09  I went to KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) and the KAUST kampus

07/12/09  I went to Mexico City for pre-departure orientation

08/20/09  Leave for KAUST???

09/05/09  Classes Start

09/23/09  The man behind the curtain shows up

~12/25/10 I get my masters in Electrical Engineering: Solid State Devices / Optics

KAUST is an awesome experience that will be extremely unique. The first years of an organization are supposedly the best time to be part of it. It is great and I am excited to be part of it. Yada yada yada. Here are some things you won’t find on the website. You may see it as a bit negative, but you get the sunshine from them.

As a KAUST scholar you will receive living money that will come at completely random times. It is not a steady flow for reasons that I can only attribute to IIE. IIE is the face that you will see as they recruit, evaluate, and prepare you for KAUST. The scholarship is wonderful – it payed for half of my undergraduate degree. They owed me over 10,000 at one point and I received no money until I think April. This likely has been worked out. While going to KAUST you will get $20,000 a year. What that means is vague. I assume it will be in monthly installments that usually take place at a certain time of the month. We got checks for the first year and then it became direct deposit. I got $1,213 a month all-year for living expenses, 2 x $500 a year for books, and $2,500 once for a laptop while an undergrad in addition to all my school tuition.

At all of these events you will be put up in a wonderful hotel that costs hundreds of dollars night and then grilled over a few dollars of cab receipts. At the good events they just hand you an envelope of cash. They will not pay for liquor at meals, but will take you out to eat. It is like the movie Jurassic Park as they have spared no expense.

There is a game of telephone that goes on when you ask a question. Hyperbolically, your question goes to somebody at IIE, who filters it and sends it to their boss, who then tattoos the message on a dolphin, the dolphin swims across the Atlantic, through the Mediterranean, and down to Jeddah, where it is translated several times, filtered up the chain of command until somebody just gives an answer, and the process is reversed. The circle of life. This frustration will likely work its ways out as the campus is built and the school actually exists. Contact us KAUSTers if you have questions. KAUST is at the time not a place for detail-obsessed people.

No classes before 9 am! The course catalog was NOT made by professors at KAUST, but by foreign universities that were asked what we should offer. It is being reworked constantly. They don’t know what will be taught in the spring or during winter enrichment. Winter enrichment is a few week period of mini-classes to be taken outside your typical area in things like Arabic language/culture, dive training special topics, guest lecturers, and random things.

Not everything is free at KAUST. The golf course, marina, dining hall, and other things cost money. How much? Hahaha! Like they tell me. I hope I have enough cash on hand when I land to eat until they get me on the new stipend.

KAUST.edu.sa is not a great website for real info on KAUST. Look around and you can find construction pictures from april – not January like on the official website.

Oh, and funnest of all is the campus itself. Last time I saw it in person it was a small skeleton with hundred of cranes. Supposedly it will be done for us to move in. I have heard a number of different things about it being built by the start of class. They do cite that core facilities will be open, but what is core? I have heard construction experts say they will be giving us tents (a joke) and that everything is going smoothly. I have no real info. I saw some pictures in Mexico city last weekend of KAUST 6 weeks ago of at least one finished apartment which they refuse to send me. I have always taken the lack of new pictures on the official website as a bad harbinger, but I have hope.

I leave in less than a month and yet don’t know my flight itinerary, how I will move my stuff, or what day I will leave.