HSK Questions/University Study

[weilian]

Several thoughts, its nine in the morning so they might be lacking in the necessary order for a coherent post.

Has anyone here attended an actual Chinese university with Chinese students either at the undergraduate level or the master's level? What was your experience? What HSK pass is required for this and how does that actually reflect in terms of in class ability?

Second, I'm thinking about taking the HSK Intermediate in June and I'm trying to cram for it. My school is putting me in 2 hours a day of HSK prep which should be sufficient. In terms of 词汇 I'm debating just recognition cramming for new cards right now. Opinions?

[wushijiao]

Has anyone here attended an actual Chinese university with Chinese students either at the undergraduate level or the master's level? What was your experience? What HSK pass is required for this and how does that actually reflect in terms of in class ability?

I attended Fudan for a year in Internatonal Relations as a 高級進修生 (advanced senior student, meaning I could attend Phd, MA, and BA classes within the major, and one class outside the major, but without actually working towards a degree. Any addtional classes outsde the major I could enroll in, but it'd cost me more.) My goal at the time 06-07, was to semi-retire from teaching (I was just your common English teacher at the time, which I'm not knocking, because I really loved teaching and I think it was fairly important work, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to do that for the rest of my life), atttend classes in IR, a subject had always been interested in, and work on my Chnese full time.

The plan worked out pretty well, in some aspects. I had some good classes, and some not so good. I made some good Chinese friends and Korean and Vietnamese friends, and it was nice to have friends with whom I could talk about relatively complex things in Chinese with (rather than most of my Chinese conversaton had when purchasing things). I also read a lot of good books that I had brought from HK that year (ie. Wang Lixiong's books, and three books about the events twenty years ago).

One of my best classes was Sino-American relations, an MA level course, with the then dean of the department- Ni Shixiong. He was really an amazing prof, and he was very balanced. He had met many US high-level scholars and policymakers (ie. Biden had visited him 2-3 times, Reagan came in the 80's...etc). In other classes, mainly BA level, however, I was really dissapointed wth the profs amazing bias and lack of rigor. I felt like I shouldn't be paying good money to hear a Chinese Sean Hannity, or in this case, some left-wing nut. But then agan, that's also an experience.

So, while my original plan was to continue on and get an MA at Fudan, I decided that that would not be the best course for me, since an MA there takes three years, and I felt like so much attention was placed on the US, and very little was on Chinese things (which is what I wanted to know more about). But in hindsight, I could have made more out of my time there if I had been a bit more enthusiastic (and had lived next to the campus, and had not been married, had not been teaching 2-3 days per week...etc).

For Fudan, you needed an HSK 6, and I think I had an HSK 7 at the time, but I don't know what that regulation is now. Does a level 6 or 7 really enable you to understand what is going on in the class? I think a level 6 or 7 is not a bad indicator, generally. You'll have some problems in the first few weeks, in any case. I would strongly suggest getting good at academic/written Chinese, a good book for theat is here:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/11393-%e6%b1%89%e8%af%ad%e4%b9%a6%e9%9d%a2%e7%94%a8%e8%af%ad%e5%88%9d%e7%bc%96-expressions-of-written-chinese&highlight=expressions+written+chinese

Also, it's good to read a lot about the subject that you will study in Chinese before you go, and understanding the core of the specialized vocab to your subject can be the difference between being in engaged in a class and feeling completely lost.

In short, I think it's a great idea to get an MA or to study in China with real Chinese classmates. You will gain lots of insights into the culture and the education system, and your Chinese level will reach amazing heights. For liberal arts studies (history, literature, IR...etc), you should really try to go to the top tier schools, since they'll have the nation's top experts, lots of high-level visiting scholars, the best and brightest Chinese students and international students, and have a much more relaxed de facto policy of academic freedom than other universties.