good universities, north or south

[spiff]

Hi all, I'm probably coming to china for a 1-year course of mandarin study in september; I'm still trying to decide between North (one of the universities in the HCC network, probably Dalian but maybe Harbin) or South (Nanjing). I generally enjoy a lot of sports and the outdoors so the northern winters are kind of off-putting...

Does anyone have experiences of specific universities in these cities, so that they would recommend or warn against them? For example, the UN (for which I currently work, though not for much longer) have a programme with Nanda - so I would hope it's a good institution..?

One thing I've read a few times is that some places place a really heavy emphasis on individual writing and reading, rather than speaking, listening, and conversation. I'd like to avoid that if possible.

cheers

[tiesuoqiao]

Hi,

If you only consider the three cities (Harbin, Dalian, and Nanjing), Nanda definitely is the best choice. There are also very good universities in Harbin and Dalian. But they are famous for their Engineering schools. I am not sure if they can provide good education to people learning Chinese language.

You can also find some good schools in Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin.

[mrtoga]

I have never studied in Nanjing, and I guess the only way to directly compare would be to study at each of the universities in each of the cities - I guess nobody has ever done this.

However I think it is clear that you will be hearing more Putonghua everyday in Harbin, and spend less money. In Dalian you will have the best living environment, but will spend some more money and be exposed to Dalian-hua, which while fairly standard does have a distinct burr.

Nanjing will be more expensive, there will be more westerners studying (more time spent speaking English = less time spent speaking Mandarin). On the bright side you would also pick up some Nanjing-hua! I could not comment on the living environment, university facilities as I have not been there.

Of course I am biased because I run HYCC and we only focus on universities in the northeast. This is precisely because we believe it is the best environment to study in.

[gato]

Hero Doug, a user on this board, currently lives in Nanjing. Here's a post by him on his experience:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/showthread.php?p=104369&highlight=nanjing#post104369