There was an interesting article on New York Times which talks about the American education in the mid-east. Education City, the largest enclave of American universities overseas, has quick become the elite of Qatari education, sort of local Ivy League. There are already five universities have brought programs to Doha, the capital of Qatar, and more are on their way. Cornell’s medical school will graduate the first Qatar-trained physicians this spring; Virginia Commonwealth University brought its art and design program to Qatari women few years ago and began admitting men this year; Carnegie Mellon provides computer and business programs. Also, the largest of the Education City schools, Texas A&M, offers engineering programs. The latest arrival is Georgetown’s foreign service school, and soon, Northwestern University’s journalism program will join in.
Globalization makes all these happen. Living in this global village, now we have a new “global classroom” in mid-east. There are definitely some good sides of Education City in Doha: Women have more opportunities to get higher learning in a nation where many parents do not allow their daughters to travel overseas for advanced study or to mix casually with men; young people have chance to broaden their horizons, thinking critically of some issues such as faith and religion; and students are able to visit the American home campus for a semester or a few weeks, fulfilling the experience of studying abroad.
However, some drawbacks are inevitably revealed in this system. While The Education City is proud of its endeavor to provide the so-called “real American education”, this island of American-style open debate in what remains an Islamic monarchy. Because Education City graduates will be broadly educated elites who have had extended contact with American professors and American ways of thinking, this consequence also makes some parents worried about their traditional values and way of life. In addition, whether the job market will view Education City graduates the same as American graduates of the same schools is not yet clear, since these graduates will be the first batch, and no one can guarantee how well they will do. There are also some potential problems from the faculty. According to Dr. Antonio M. Gotto Jr., dean of Weill Cornell Medical School in New York, there are about 15 percent of lectures are through videoconferencing. Although the new technology allows both instructors and students in Education City have a convenient way to interact and to communicate via screen, the quality of the lectures raises some concerns. Another question is, even with free housing, bonus pay and big tax advantages, and still few professors want to move to Qatar. “You get a lot of people at the end of their careers. Coming to Qatar, where you don’t have graduate students and research grants, does you no good for getting tenure.” Said one computer-science professor at Carnegie Mellon.
People outside of the U.S. see or hear about American education from different sources, one of the important sources is electronic media. From the TV programs, Hollywood movies, and the “omnipotent” Internet, the different learning atmosphere presented on the media allures bunch of people coming here to study. No matter the media portrayed education in the U.S. in a partial or an oversimplified way, there must be some reasons that many countries in the world recognize the overall concept of American education. I believe that to many international students, one of the most precious characteristics in American education, meanwhile the most different one comparing to the philosophy of education in their own countries, is that students are encouraged to share their own opinions with others, and are welcomed to have alternative voices as well. Especially in Asian countries, students are taught to be “happy-mediums”, according to the golden mean of Confucius school. Harmony and modesty are the basic principles that most of Asian people shared. There is no right or wrong since cultures and customs vary from nation to nation. But I do think that a person’s intellect needs to be stimulated. Just like the dean of Carnegie Mellon in Qatar explains that American education is a very big change for many of their students, who had no experience with questions like “What do you think the author meant by that?” or “Do you agree or disagree?”
Overall, I think Education City is a successful example of bringing more diversity and creating more opportunities for people in Qatar. But at the same time, the dilemma between maintaining the traditional values and being a more globalized person by adopting American education exists in every student’s minds at Education City. Professor Gary Wasserman, who taught “U.S. Political System” course at Georgetown branch in Doha, mentioned that students came up with questions he had never thought of. “You can see how much they want to be a part of a globalized world, but you also can see that they don’t want to have to give up their faith, their family, their traditions. And why should they?”
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