Aberdeen University eyeing up a campus in South Korea
And you thought studying next to Torry was bad enough…
Aberdeen University has commissioned research into building a campus in South Korea to capitalise on the Oil and Gas industry over there.
Aberdeen, known for its money-grabbing tactics, is looking into setting up a satellite campus 5000 miles from the North East of Scotland.
They are yet to acknowledge the commute would be a bitch.
The part of South Korea the university hopes to crack is in a free trade area.
Incheon, South Korea’s 3rd largest city, has created “a university complex where foreign universities are located together,” said Helena Jung, Project Manager.
Incheon is now seeking new universities to join its global campus.
It would offer undergrad and post-grad degrees in oil and gas related studies – because Arts subjects are useless apparently.
And semesters would run like they do here, with courses taught in English too.
Aberdeen would be the first of the 4 Scottish ancient universities to set up an international branch.
A prime concern for Aberdeen is centred on who will be teaching courses and how much they will be paid.
Aberdeen have said it would be part of their plans to create “strategic” partnerships with regions and organisations.
If the deal goes ahead, it will be the latest partnership between Scotland and Incheon since one with South Korea’s marine energy sector.
Other universities including, State University of New York (SUNY), George Mason University in Virginia, the University of Southern California, Utah and Ghent University in Belgium. North Carolina State University, Missouri, and even Surrey have also promised to work with the universities on the campus.
The first taught lectures in 2012 and now hopes to branch out, slight age gap between our 1495 start up.
The Global Campus is offering Aberdeen high quality administrative services, (something many schools on the main campus can learn from and adopt, especially when delivering exam results) and tax support.
Basically, paying universities to go there.
The city itself does not differ too greatly from Aberdeen, apart from the 5,000 mile distance.
And neither city’s first language is English.
Experts at The Tab have claimed that such a move would help revive North East Scotland’s dying dialect, Doric, as more students bask in Aberdonian-Korean culture.
With only a month left to decide to bid, Aberdeen might actually “Go Anywhere”.