Job Discussion Forums

[AmericanAmina]

I know! I really expected to see more employers. Maybe there will be more at the actual event? And how did China sneak one in there?

[danshengou]

A sign of the times

[siologen]

An ominous sign, but that is just me!

[nomad soul]

[AmericanAmina]

I interviewed with PNU today at the TESOL Arabia job fair. They told me they have almost 300 instructors in their English department alone. I didn't realize how huge this university actually is. They have 49,000 students. That's almost double the population of my hometown in Arkansas. So, yes, it's likely that some of their hiring is still done through contractors. But it's better for teachers to get their position by direct hire.

Btw, I posted a long (looooooooooooong) description of the job fair over on the UAE forum, since that's where the conference is taking place.

[nomad soul]

[siologen]

[AmericanAmina]

Good question.

[nomad soul]

[veiledsentiments]

A massive campus that appears to be totally devoid of humans.

I've never heard Rahman pronounced consistently with 3 syllables. LOL It sounded like a computer voice.

Does the library have any books? None were shown...

Nice monorail system. Note that the walkways are all covered. (same at SQU in Oman)

VS

[nomad soul]

[veiledsentiments]

Yes obviously... but it still made me laugh out loud. Like the rapture had arrived and everyone passed muster.

VS

[AmericanAmina]

That campus is gorgeous. Truly. I hadn't watched any videos before.

[siologen]

That place is immense. Bigger than some towns in the UK it would seem! Can't begin to even the imagine the logistics of keeping a place like that ticking over, must have it's own substation/gennies and sewage plant for starters I would reckon, as well as a water source.

[KME0050]

Like nearly every other place in the Kingdom, what you see in pictures and videos of PNU is only an superficial approximation of what you get on the ground. The truth is, that while the university is nearly new, it was hastily constructed and no thought was given to maintenance. What matters are appearances, at least initially. Thereafter, not even that matters. As a result:

--A beautiful long corridor of huge mature palm trees (hundreds) that ran down the center of the campus came crashing down one tree at a time as a result of neglect and then later, total abandonment. There was once a huge palm tree graveyard where the dead trees were dragged. They were replaced with some anemic-looking scrubby little trees. Don't know if they are still living.

--Classrooms are equipped with e-podiums, smart boards, projectors and just about anything else a tech-savvy teacher could want, except that they seldom work and very few women on the campus are equipped with the skills (or will) to repair them.

--Every clock in every building in the university reads 12:00. Forever. They hang very high on the walls and the time was never set.

--Escalators sometimes work and sometimes don't. Repair can take weeks.

--the campus is dotted with what should be beautiful fountains, except that they've never contained water and are all crumbling down and beyond repair.

--As soon as two years after the university was constructed, the sidewalks started to crack, crumble, and cave into the earth. Paving over sand appears to have it's challenges.

--The monorail frequently gets stuck--up high in the blistering sky and packed with hundreds of girls.

--At the time when I was there, you could count on one hand the number of books in the beautiful library.

--Despite the apparent vastness of the university, there was never, ever, ever adequate classroom space. It was not unusual to pack 60 girls into a classroom build for 30 or 40.

On its website, PNU looks spectacular, on the ground, what you see is neglect, disrepair, and some rather horrific results of poor planning . . . .