REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA –-  By: Nabilla Lubay  

Art and Design is often seen as a sign of creative freedom and expressive visual communication. However is it worth the trouble to learn this liberating creative field in a middle eastern context?

Education is expensive and studying in an American university in Qatar is not cheap either. Qatar Foundation also known as Hamad Bin Khalifa University is a well known hub that foster world class education with universities that are the top in America. This famous campus full of Internationally well-known university becomes a symbol of prestige and aspiration to those who wishes to study at Qatar Foundation’s University. The university I studied is considered the number one public art school in the USA – Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond, Virginia.

I had the privilege to visit the home campus in the US a couple of times and also graduated from the Honors and school of the arts college at the main campus. However there is a slight difference in the study environment in Qatar in contrast to the US. For starters gender ratio; The US consider design as somewhat a masculine field but in Eastern thinking we see it as often a feminine pursuit and therefore there is a larger female student body in VCU Qatar than it is in the US. In fact in my batch consisting of around 60 students there is only 4 male student. As much as this number seems shocking it is not uncommon, the people in the middle east, much like most eastern thinking believe that as a male, pursuing the arts is often a risky gamble and not considered masculine.

In terms of education, the curriculum and grading system is similar to the main campus. Unlike the universities in Indonesia and other European University, American university grading system isn’t so flexible, as in there is not minus and pluses. So you either get and A, B , C, D, E, F or U (ungraded). It’s fine to use this kind of grading for other major that has a more constructive answers but Design is more subjective and in the eyes of the beholder, what seem to be a second rate design could be a first rate. Therefore a more flexible grading system of pluses and minus will benefit more towards the arts and design major.

Another aspect that makes VCU Qatar different than its US main campus is its context. Being in an Arab country there is a necessity to understand that almost all information will be bilingual with both arabic and english. This is an important factor for those who are graphic design student such as myself; our foundation as graphic design student is typography, therefore we are required to learn both the latin and arabic typography. Since the majority of the student are arabs It is not uncommon to embed arabic contemporary design into the practise. To the minority who are not Arab it is often a bit of struggle to learn arabic typography since it’s difficult to those who doesn’t speak the language. In fact only a few handful of professors are able to teach it since the majority are American who are not qualified to teach arabic typography.

Despite the context of the University being in the middle east the history and design methodology as well as philosophy is very western based. The Artist and Designer we look for in our precedents are all Euro-American, of course there is no rule that say that you can’t look at other non western artist and designer but it’s going to be difficult since the professors will not be able to guide you in your deign endeavour if you choose to pick a more eastern perspective. Although there has been occasion in which some student would take this route and venture out of the western and Arab boundaries. Another thing to consider that if you are not a Qatari citizen it is advised to not expressed any political issues and publicly show case them.

In terms of cost of tuition, American universities are not cheap. In fact a lot of students in the states all graduated with a high amount of debt, not surprising since the cost of tuition per semester is $ 24317 (approx. Rp. 323,416,100). Fortunately, I received a scholarship based on merit, I had to maintained a minimum of  3.6 GPA each semester in order to keep my scholarship. Before the crisis of Oil price, Qatar offered various scholarship and generous financial aid services to students, however things have become a lot more difficult. Despite the horrendous cost of tuition, the facilities and equipment VCU Qatar provide is a lot more generous than in the US, in fact printing is free because each department has their own printer therefore student don’t need to pay an extra cost to print out their projects. I believe this is the advantage quality that makes VCU Qatar appealing compared to its US campus. In the US you would need to pay to print and it would cost even more if you were to make a mistake in your design and needed to reprint again. Another thing to marvel is the stock of high end papers that are free for student in VCU Qatar graphic design department to use. To some who are not graphic design student a bunch of papers seems rather mundane and insignificant but to us papers, especially the good quality type are not cheap and easy to get. This follows up into another topic –  Resources.

Qatar’s creative industry is small and still at its early stage as opposed to the US, therefore art and design supplies are often limited and expensive. Therefore it’s a privilege that the university is willing to give out extra supplies to the students free of charge. Of course I’m not sure if this kind of privilege will continue to exist in the near future but as of now it’s something that makes studying in Qatar seems appealing to art and design student.

In my opinion, I do believe that studying in an American University in Qatar is definitely a new experience and opens up an interdisciplinary field of design that many design universities may not provide. However, because of the context it is in, there is still a lack of appreciation for the arts and design in Qatar especially since its creative industry is still relatively small. It will take some time until Qatar is fully developed as a country for its creative industry to fully flourished. In terms of job prospect, you will always remain as an employee since higher level positions are given to the locals and the prospect of being an entrepreneur is a lot more slimmer and complicated in Qatar.  

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