June 6 University of Kent, Brussels

June 6- University of Kent,Brussels

This morning we took a bus to Brussels which took about 45 minutes. As we approached the city Ingeborg told us that most street signs and business signs in Brussels would be in both Dutch and French. I attempted to take a picture but since it was raining steadily I was not able to get a good shot. We drove through down town and arrived at an office building. I was most familiar with Kent, Brussels since my outline for Orientation was on this campus. I knew that it was a post-graduate campus with around 200 students from all over the world.  The campus advertises themselves as the Brussels School of International Business (BSIS) and with their location near NATO allows for countless internships.  The classes are taught in English.

 From the sign you can see that there are several other things located within this building including another college...Vrije Universiteit Brussels which BSIB has agreements for use of their libraries and student recreation facilities.

We arrived in the rain to this office building and were met in the lobby by the site director, Roger Vickerman.  He and another man spoke to our group for about two hours.  We had lunch and then continued discussion after lunch.

Some interesting information about BSIB:

-Had to be accredited by both UK (since Kent is located in England) and by Brussels (have to be accredited for US students to come...no accreditation= no federal loans).

-Almost all faculty have PhD except for two that are CEO's of their companies.

-One faculty works for NATO (and by law can't earn outside salary) so teaches 1 class per semester for free.

-Students can be full time or part-time...range of options

-No GRE required.  Students judged on 'past performance and future potential'.

-Students have 2-3 hours per week of 'formal contact' with professors.  Other time spent in individual projects or dissertations.

-Goal of programs are to teach students how to think and analyze problems.

-Some of the more interesting concept that we talked about was with loans.  (Looking at my notes now I have new questions but will post what I wrote.)  Students don't have to repay student loans until their salary is above median salary which is currently 21,000 Pounds ($32,000).  Loans not paid after 30 years are forgiven. **Think this was talking about U Kent loans for undergraduates.  **UK tax structure not as high as Belgium so tuition is higher.


Buzz words in UK education currently:

-Internationalization

-Student Experience

-Employability

-Most interesting to me...UK operates on a 14 month calendar.  (Get a double pay check at Christmas and in July.)


**Some take aways from all those discussions:

-Graduate education here is much different than US.  PhD focus on dissertation and don't take classes.  I see value in the classes I am taking as they are preparing me to research and write a dissertation.  However, I can also see value in spending three years considering and writing about a problem.

-Remote campuses all have challenges with students thinking they are missing out on something on the main campus.

-Colleges have to be careful about issuing Visas to students.  If a college is issuing too many to unsuccessful students then it could lose the ability to issue any.

-Buzz words in UK are also in the US.  With the rising cost of tuition students want to make sure they are getting a quality education and are being prepared for the job market. 
After three days we have seen three very different types of schools.   We started with the traditional college then visited a high school.  Today was spent in a graduate school.  The next two days we will be back on more traditional campuses.  Tomorrow will be at Ghent and then Friday at Leiden.

After the bus back to Gent we had some time to walk around before things closed.  We are enjoying French fries (invented in Belgium), chocolate, waffles, and Belgium beer.