Semester is coming: Ulster raises Game as seat of learning
How do universities from a small country such as Northern Ireland compete with the US and Canada for the attention of pupils at an international fair?
They summon the King in the North.
As soon as actor Warren Eltringham stepped into the Northern Ireland exhibition booth at the Najah higher education fair dressed as Jon Snow, the hero in the fantasy drama Game of Thrones, packs of teenagers crowded around eager to learn more and submit their details to recruiters.
Northern Ireland has doubled for Westeros in key scenes in the hugely popular HBO series.
While the country’s local universities are relatively unknown beyond Europe, they are capitalising on Northern Ireland’s star power to at least pique an interest among the thousands of pupils expected to attend the three-day fair, which began yesterday at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre.
“We are relatively unknown right now, so that’s our biggest challenge – getting our brand awareness out there,” said Teresa Purdy, head of international student marketing for Ulster University in Belfast. “There are students worldwide who are fanatics about the Game of Thrones.”
Beyond offering a £2,000 (Dh9,728) scholarship to all international students – on top of an already reasonable £13,240 annual undergraduate tuition – Ulster University also takes its new foreign recruits on a tour of well-known Game of Thrones settings as part of induction.
The annual student fair showcases more than 150 local and international universities representing about 20 countries. It is visited by busloads of public and private school pupils from across the country.
Down the hall from Northern Ireland, recruiters in the Japan booth showed off famous anime characters to catch the youths eyes.
Representatives from Joshibi University of Art and Design, the oldest private art university in Japan, proudly displayed a poster of Hello Kitty and other popular Japanese cartoons.
“These are the work of our alumni,” said Takumi Sato, a university spokesman. Hello Kitty designer Yuko Shimizu graduated from the university. “We are very good at designing these cute mascot characters.”
The university is for women only, which Mr Sato said would probably appeal to many UAE families.
Although most of the university’s foreign students are from China or South Korea, he said he hoped to attract Emiratis. The UAE Government issues higher education scholarships for Emiratis to study in Japan.
At the single Hungarian booth, representatives from the University of Debrecen highlighted the country’s safety and ease of visa for their success in attracting about 65 students from the UAE last year.
“We are in the Schengen area [of the European Union]. If you have a visa to Hungary, you can travel anywhere,” said Dr Zsolt Tiba, head of the international office.