Studying In China - English Taught Courses At University (General Advice)

[nh7879]

Hi,

Sorry to bother you.

I am from the UK and want to go to university in China. After visiting during the summer holidays, i would really like to go back as a student in two years.

I am currently 16, and so have 2 more years of study until University.

I don't know much at all about universities in China and whether some offer English taught courses. Also, i wanted to look at the possibility of learning Chinese at the same time.

Ive been on google but not found much, i just wanted some general advice on universites and whether there are some which have courses in English.

Thanks,

Nabil

[davidj]

When this sort of topic last arose, the universal advice was: don't. Certainly, I've not come across anyone who did a first degree entirely in China.

I believe the suggestion was to find a good UK university that has an arrangement with a Chinese one to send students there for part of their course, or simply to do a vocational language course in China, but your degree all in the UK.

I would be very suspicious of any first degree course taught in English, and, in any case, if you really wanted to do a first degree in China, I think it would have to be because you wanted to learn the language. I think prospective employers would also be suspicious of such degrees, in part because they have no experience of them.

Postgraduate study may be different, in that the university wants to benefit. more than financially, from such students.

You haven't indicated your strong subjects, but I don't think employers would give much weight to a Chinese science degree. Any benefit you might get would be in terms of your experience outside of formal education, or the diversity of learning skills implied by having language abilities as well. That's another reason for not going to a course in English.

If you do study in Chinese, you should budget for doing an intensive language course for the first year. The language requirements for starting science subjects are lower than for other subjects, but they are still quite high.

The thread I'm thinking about that discussed this sort of subject before was the one about scholarships for bachelor degrees.

Edited September 13, 2008 at 01:36 PM by davidj
Add hint to finding previous thread on subject.

[Scoobyqueen]

Certainly, I've not come across anyone who did a first degree entirely in China.

A guy from Germany did that. His story was quite amazing. In his teens he decided to learn Chinese and ended up earning a scholarship to do a full degree in Chinese at Beida. However, tragedy struck and he died under mysterious circumstances in Beijing two years ago.

http://www.bernhard-wilden.de/

I agree with Davidj on not doing the undergratduate degree in China. Also, if you were, you would be best advised to learn Chinese first given that you have two years to prepare. There was a guy here on the forums called someting like Mason who asked the same question and was your exact age. You could contact him and ask him he how he got on.

[teaforme]

I'd have to agree with Davidj. It's best to get a UK degree or a degree from an institution in an English-speaking country. Employers around the world are biased in favor of UK/USA/Canadian/AUS/NZ degrees. Is it unfair and silly? Absolutely! But it's how the world works and it's best to play it safe with a UK degree. Here's hoping this changes one day.

Until then, have you looked into SOAS? They offer very good BA courses and Chinese language training. The BA course also includes a year abroad in China.

[kalmyk]

I found this thread looking for the same thing more or less. In the Netherlands we can take the government grant for higher education to any country, as long as the program is up to standard. Pretty lucky.. Here is a website of an organization that qualifies universities and colleges: http://neso.nuffic.nl/china/dutch-students/study-in-china it also has a lot of information about the programs and it's in English.

[zerolife]

agree with the others ... i think it will be tough for you to move back to the US with a first degree from a Chinese university. And you will be really disadvantaged in the Chinese job market as you would have to compete with Chinese students, who have much higher Chinese language skill and culture knowledge than you. However, you might want to consider a graduate degree in China as I am currently.

Well anyway if you do decide to study in China, do not consider anything else other than Tsinghua University and Peking University. I learned from my Chinese friends that most bigger companies in China are only looking for recent grads from these two universities in this competitive market.

[politgetier]

Hy zerolife,

I am german and therefore I am not sure what exactly is meant by a "first degree", a BA-degree (which you guys recommend NOT to do in China) ???

I am about to have my BA finished here in Germany and then plan to go to China to do an english-taught MA in "Contemporary China Studies".

http://www.chinastudies.cn/

How would you evaluate that? Especially that you strongly recommended two other universities above. Do you know anything about "renmin daxue"?

What graduate-program do you currently pass?

Finally,

here`s an overview of english-taught programs that I found (forgot where though (- ).

EnglishTaughtPrograms.doc