After finishing their first day of classes last Sunday, nearly a dozen students at Carnegie Mellon's new branch campus in Qatar sat down for a teleconference with a small group of students in Pittsburgh.

Clearly showing their enthusiasm, the new students discussed plans to create several student organizations and adapt Carnegie Mellon's traditions and culture to their campus. There was even talk of buggy racing down the sand dunes in Doha, Qatar.

The Qatar students are part of a 46-person first-year class that is predominantly female and largely from the Middle East. They are studying either business administration or computer science. Most students were educated at American or British high schools in the Middle East, though a few attended Arabic schools. The students are multicultural, most speaking two or three languages.

Andrea Modeste, a CIT graduate student, led the Qatar campus's orientation. She found the students very similar to first-years in Pittsburgh and very fun. She observed their eagerness to set up a campus community.

"The [Qatar] students want to do more," she said.

Modeste, who was a head Orientation Counselor while an undergraduate in 2003, also noted how young the Qatar students are. Most are 16 or 17 years old, and few can drive since the legal age is 18.

Classes are currently taking place in the Weill Cornell Medical College building. Carnegie Mellon's facilities are expected to be completed in 2006. The workweek in Qatar runs from Sunday to Thursday; otherwise, however, the academic calendar is similar to the one in Pittsburgh, though students there will receive time off for Ramadan and other Muslim holidays.

There was a mixed reaction to the first day of courses, which featured computer programming. In describing the new campus, first-year business student Yasmine Abdel-Rahman said, "It feels like high school. I think we expected more, but it is nice."

Abdel-Rahman said some students have plans to recruit applicants for next year from their high schools. She attended an international school in Doha.

Though they might have expected more, the students are settling in and getting to know one another well. They go to the game room or the local movie theater for entertainment and can dine at a variety of eastern and western restaurants.

The Qatar students, thousands of miles away, are anxious to become an integral part of the Carnegie Mellon community. The students are planning to form a student government that will establish a pattern for creating other student organizations. Abdel-Rahman said they want to wait for everyone to get to know one another before holding democratic elections.

In recent years, the Student Senate of Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon branch has had difficulty filling seats, and in 2001, the Princeton Review named our student body most politically apathetic; the Qatar students, however, are enthusiastic to challenge that implication and establish their own strong student government,

Omar Kahn, a first-year business student, talked of creating a Model United Nations and National Honor Society that would promote community service projects.

Though Qatar has been influenced by Western culture, elements of Islam are incorporated into its laws. The students noted it is illegal to drink in Qatar, that Muslims are prohibited from drinking alcohol, and that the local society generally looks down upon those who do.

Qatar's oil industry creates a significant level of wealth for its population, which is nearly three-fourths foreign. There are a number of people from India and Pakistan. The country is also home to a large US military installation.

At a Faculty Senate meeting in January, Milton Cofield, executive director of the business administration program, and Peter Lee, associate dean for undergraduate education at SCS, said the Qatar Foundation asked that students from the Middle East be recruited for the program. They also noted that Middle Eastern women typically do not have the opportunity to study abroad. Students at the Qatar branches of Texas A&M and Cornell are predominantly female. The Qatar Foundation established Education City in Doha, Qatar to develop and utilize human potential and create new talents and technology. The Qatari government is attempting to improve its education system and has encouraged several American universities to establish branch campuses there.