best overall experience - good language AND bonding with other students?

[bottledpoetry]

Hey guys,

I'm currently a junior in college who plans to learn chinese in beijing for a year after I graduate. And...well, I feel like I'm the first to ask this among some very studious types , but I am looking for a program that offers high quality language instruction, and still allows me to bond with fellow students through living in the dorms together or networking events, etc. I went on a study abroad program through UC, and having the opportunity to meet and live with other foreign students enhanced my experience and made the switch to living in China a lot easier. And if I'm going to be in China for a year, I want to be able to meet people to travel with, or just chill at the club with. That being said (and I am serious about learning chinese - just don't want to be completely on my own!!!), what in your opinion, allows a language student to meet fellow students and has a good teaching program, preferably not over $6,000 ish a semester? I already went to BNU (and had an amazing time, btw), but I would like to try out a new university Please share your experiences, I appreciate all the help I can get! Thank you.

[adrianlondon]

Could you tell us what you liked/disliked about BNU and what differences you're looking for in a new place? I also went to BNU and loved it. It seems many people went to (or are now at) BNU based on my recommendations at the time!

Every place has its good points and bad points, and I'm curious as to what other people's perceptions are.

Had you not ended your message by saying you went to BNU, I would have recommended you went there ;)

[adrianlondon]

Oh, another point ... when I did my initial investigation at the end of 2005, BNU was the place to mix with locals and have a serious edication (with focus on reading/writing) whereas BLCU was the place to go to if you wanted to chill out, have so-so teachers who focussed on speaking.

Recently, it seems to have changed. The language focus of each place is the same, but BNU now has some patchy teachers whereas the quality of teaching at BLCU appears to have improved slightly and become more consistent.

It now seems to come down to whether you'd like to be in Wudaokou or not and who you're trying to impress. If you want to impress the natives then go to BNU (as it has a good reputation here in China and with other Asians). If you want to impress folk (friends and employers) back home, then no one has heard of BNU (and you'll spend 10 minutes trying to convince them that "normal university" isn't a stupid name, and fail) but they may have heard of BLCU.

[bottledpoetry]

Adrian, here goes

What really made BNU work for me was my kooky chinese teacher. I learned more chinese with him in a quarter than in a year and a half of college Chinese, because he went at a challenging pace, explaining thoroughly, but keeping his students awake with jokes and that in-class humiliation chinese teachers love . It’s also a smaller campus (or it felt like it to me?), which was nice, because I got to know the neighborhood, where the cheapest supermarkets were, the best dumpling place, etc. so it made it feel more homey. And of course what really made it wonderful was the other students I was with. I still keep in touch with them after more than a year – it feels like we were just frolicking about

The bad: to be honest, I think BNU’s campus is pretty unattractive, esp. with the construction and smells of faulty sewage systems in the language building XD I envied beida’s park a bit. Also – it was hard to meet any people – locals and foreigners in other programs. I didn't know the first thing about meeting people there. And I heard from a friend that a girl recently got raped by a construction worker at BNU – so I don’t think it’s a very safe campus at all.

FYI, I LOVE WUDAOKOU <3 and would love to live there. I’m not particularly looking to impress, its really to learn Chinese well enough so that I could work in China and read Chinese lit. Hehe, beijing normal. Good times Just curious – what have you heard about BLCU’s program and tsinghua? My chinese teacher recommended tsinghua, but doesn’t seem to be doing so well on this forum.

[heifeng]

The bad: to be honest, I think BNU’s campus is pretty unattractive, esp. with the construction and smells of faulty sewage systems in the language building XD I envied beida’s park a bit. Also – it was hard to meet any people – locals and foreigners in other programs. I didn't know the first thing about meeting people there. And I heard from a friend that a girl recently got raped by a construction worker at BNU – so I don’t think it’s a very safe campus at all.

The campus isn't as aesthetically pleasing as other campuses, I agree on this. I feel that it is relatively safe though. I also heard about the incident that you mention here, but I don't know if one incident means the whole school is unsafe. (FYI, there are definitely rapes that other attacks that have occured on various UC campuses) If anything PKU often has a ton of random people on campus since it is such a well known and 'pretty' public university so you'll have to deal with all the tour groups and the public when they wander onto campus. In general, you can't really let your guard down just because you are on campus no matter what school or country you are in.

In terms of meeting people, I think that really depends on you as an individual. I think that as a foreigner it is easy (even easier) to fall in to the (pitfall that is the) foreign student scene~ if that is what you are concerned about missing out on. If that is really more of your objective then wudaokou area and one of those schools might just be the better choice. (Overall, I just think that the BNU area has more charm. I can't handle all traffic, beggers, overpriced things, and people chasing after foreigners for whatever random reason in Wudaokou.)

In terms of educational quality I can't really compare schools out here. I tend to like Buxiban classes more than my university classes though and that is the only reason I head to the center of evil traffic congestion known as wudaokou...

Although you went thru the UC's before, you can apply to the universities out here directly, and the cost information should be on their websites. This is usually cheaper than going through a US school or program. If you apply to school, you should also be able to live in the school dorms or you could just get an apartment on your own too.