Heriot-Watt University Dubai

Heriot-Watt University
Dubai Campus
Established 2005
Chancellor Robert M Buchan
Principal Professor Richard Williams
Vice Principal (Dubai) Professor Ammar Kaka
Students 2,700[1]
Location Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Website www.hw.ac.uk/dubai

History

Heriot-Watt's Dubai campus opened in rented rooms in 2005[3] and was officially opened on 2 April 2006.[4] It originally had 120 students, with plans to increase the number to 1,500 within 5 years. The pace of its expansion outstripped this projection, however, and by 2010 it had met its capacity of 2,000 students.[5]

Construction of a new, purpose-built campus began in 2010.[6] This was officially opened on 3 November 2011, increasing the capacity of Heriot-Watt in Dubai to 4,500 students.[2][6]

Campus

Heriot-Watt's Dubai Campus is located in Dubai International Academic City, approximately 20 minutes from the city's business district.[7] Phase 1 of the campus was a single 3 floored building consisting of numerous classrooms, IT lab facilities, Mechanical & Automotive labs, library, Fashion and Interior Studio. On the top floor was a common lounge for students to relax in their spare time and a small convenient store on the ground floor. Around the campus was facilities for sports. The phase 2 of the campus opened in September 2013 opened up better facilities for the students of Heriot Watt encompassing a 1000 seater auditorium, a game room, a food court with 3-4 food outlets, gymnasium, a bigger convenient store, a quiet room for academic use, on campus dorms for males and females and a work in progress coffee shop and stationary outlet.[8] University accommodation is provided in Mirdiff, around 15 minutes away from the site.[9]

Student activities on campus are organized by the Student Council and the Student body at Heriot Watt University. The Student Council is head by the Student President, who is elected on an annual basis. The President chairs the Student Senate/Council which makes all major decisions on student activities.All events are student organized and a variety of on campus activities are prevalent such as Inter-Cluster activities, Ethnic Days, Scottish Highland Games, Charity drives, Picnics etc.[10]

The list of Student Presidents :

Courses

One of the first higher education providers to be licensed by the Knowledge and Human Development Authority in Dubai (KHDA), Heriot-Watt's degrees are also accredited by Royal Charter in the UK. While the Campus initially offered business, management and information technology courses, today it provides courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate level from each of the University's seven schools:[11][12][13]


The Dubai Campus maintains strong links with the UK, with students able to transfer to any Heriot-Watt campus in Britain at the end of each academic year.[14]

Criticism

Despite the fact that Heriot Watt Dubai had maintained rigorous and scrutiny in following main university rules, policies in quality assurance and provided extensive support to the campus in terms of departmental facilities, social services, career services and other services to their students and graduates. Yet, the university strategy had reluctantly imbued less respectfulness to seek compliance of their offered programs accredited by local federal accreditation authorities, in face of other consequences forcibly made by these local authorities. Nearly all campus graduates are facing unavoidable impacts when rolling out to federal local job market or when applying for any state local university for further education. This matter had indispensably plumbed out with campus credibility and caused disappointment to its graduates.1

See also

External links

References

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