King Abdullah University of Science and Technology

Good day!

Finally, I had time to write a little about my new place of work, a new technological university in Saudi Arabia (KAUST). KAUST is a very young and ambitious project. It is intended by the King’s idea to revive the former glory of the Arab science and for this purpose they don’t regret any political resources or financial resources. In this message I will briefly tell about my observations at the university, which I managed to do in 2 months of work.
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A little bit about yourself

I work on the PostDoc position in the group of mathematical physics, which is based in the Department of Mathematics, Computer and Engineering Technologies. I am engaged in numerical calculations of detonation waves in a classical gas and dispersive shock waves in quantum gases. I completed my postgraduate studies in theoretical physics at the Institute of Spectroscopy, Russian Academy of Sciences.

A bit about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is an Islamic kingdom in whose territory the relevant laws apply. There is a lot of oil in the kingdom, and it is the main ally of the USA in this region. The main oil producing company in the Kingdom is Saudi Aramco. The local currency is the Saudi rial, which is approximately equal to 8 of our rubles. Almost all more or less educated people speak English well, since higher education takes place in this language.

A little bit about KAUST

KAUST is a university campus located in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on the shores of the Red Sea. KAUST opened just three years ago and at present the volume of investments in it has reached about $ 20 billion. The main intellectual resources are attracted to KAUST from other countries, starting with the USA and ending with the countries of South-East Asia. In order to attract foreign specialists and students, KAUST has made more liberal laws than those in force in the rest of the kingdom. For example, women do not need to wear a ~~black~~ abyu ~~cape at the~~ university, and they are allowed to drive a car. The official language of the university is English. Alcohol on the campus is prohibited. Foreign specialists are also attracted by good salaries from which they do not charge taxes, for example, my manager came to KAUST from MIT, another professor in our department worked as a professor at Harvard, and a friend PostDoc from Oxford is going to apply for a position in KAUST. Many professionals are also provided with a free villa or apartment.

Since KAUST is a technological institute, a greater bias is made towards applied research. The university has a department of chemistry and natural sciences, as well as the department of physical sciences. There are also many non-scientific departments, for example, the department of information technology, which serves a super computer and the rest of the IT infrastructure. There is a department for working with the government of the kingdom and with the embassies of foreign countries. Through this structure, all visa issues are resolved (this also includes obtaining a visa to another state, for example, if you are going on vacation or on a business trip), obtaining a driver's license and other issues regarding interaction with the state. The university has a school, a kindergarten, and a large number of different facilities for a comfortable life: a beach with a sailing station, a diving center, a yacht club, a fitness center, swimming pools, a large golf course, many tennis courts, football fields, car rental service, taxi service, clinic, large dining room, you can transfer for a long time. Attending many sports facilities is free or cheap. For example, renting a windsurfing kit costs 50 riyals per hour, as much is to rent a small catamaran. I do not play golf yet (and it’s worth trying), but I can say that the golf course looks very impressive, a very interesting landscape, a perfect lawn, I just can’t imagine how much pleasure this cost in Moscow, it costs about 300 riyals per month . Sometimes the university is more like a big five star hotel on the shores of the red sea.

At KAUST, students learn from Master Degree, there is also a PhD Degree. In research departments you can work on the positions PostDoc, Reseacher and Engeneer. Education on MD and PhD student positions is free, moreover, a stipend in the amount of $ 25 thousand per year is paid, as well as housing is provided, for a lonely person this is usually a ~~two-story three-bedroom apartment~~ one bed room apartment, fully furnished, with all necessary equipment.

IT at KAUST

There is a clear bias towards Apple products. Each student or specialist is given a MacBook Pro, a large Apple monitor and a Dell Precision T7500 desktop or iMac, and the latest IPhone is also given to specialists. Attendants, ranging from security guards working on the iMac, other computers are simply not there. I do not really understand this focus on Apple products, but it can be seen when designing a university that corporations divided the market among themselves. For example, all phones and routers only from Cisco. If necessary, you can access the Shaheen supercomputer, plus each laboratory organizes its own small cluster, which is what I am doing now. There is a large laboratory, on the visualization of scientific data, I have not studied it in detail, there are 3D printers and a large number of monitors and projectors in various configurations. Most of the university’s territory is covered by a Wifi network, there is an IP television network, a television set-top box is in each house. Skype is open.

Prices

A full lunch in the dining room costs from 14 riyals, a taxi to the airport 100 rials, car rental 120 riyals per day.

disadvantages

If you want to work and play sports and you have a wife, then apart from the lack of alcohol, the heat of summer and the absence of cultural life, there are practically no flaws. For example, I work during the day, in the evening in the fitness room, on weekends I roll on the surfboard if I am blowing. I love the sea and it replaces almost all the entertainment for me. If you are accustomed to a rich cultural life, you want to go to parties and have fun, then of course it will be boring, this is especially true for single people. Some, for example, travel a lot, so find a way out. There is still some feeling that you live on a reservation, in fact, KAUST is.

There will be questions, please, try to answer.

PS
Sorry for the quality of the photos.

Park not far from my house