Chinese Study Before Starting Masters Degree.

[kongli]

I have just been accepted to do a Masters degree at Renmin University in Beijing on a Chinese government scholarship. Looking at the specifications for the scholarship it says that you can study Chinese for 1 or 2 years before starting the Masters program and the scholarship will cover this as well. I am wondering if the Chinese study is done through the normal international students program and they simply expect you to get your Chinese to a level appropriate for grad school or if there will be a special program for graduate school students? If anyone has any experience with this type of program please let me know what your experience was. Thanks!

Kongli

[roddy]

The China Scholarship Council epic discussions may contain enlightenment, but I'm pretty sure you'll be in with the normal language students. May be worthwhile seeing if you can sit in on some courses (maybe undergrad ones) in your chosen area of study.

[dumdumdum]

standard procedure, you and every other foreign student get a HSK-alike language test in the first week or so, to determind ur language proficiency, then they arrange you to classes according to your performance. they used to have about 300+ foreign students in the mid 90s but have grow more than twice in the last few years, with koreans as the majority group there. if you end up among the mid range then its probably ok, the lessons are not too demanding. the top 2 or 3 classes will be quite pressurizing, while the lower ranks are too easy and you wont learn much. most chinese universities requires a HSK level 6 to get a bachelor program or 7 for masters, while those going for traditional chinese medical will need a level 7 for bachelor. so you will need a level 7.

if you have that prior to your china tour you could skip the language courses altogether and go for the main dish. if you didnt, you would have to get one before your planned semester. school starts in fall so you should get your HSK level 7 by the Jan or May exams. if you couldnt make it, you still have a last chance. write a plea to the admin office to promise that you will get a 7 the next coming exams. if they reviewed and approved, then you can start with your degree course first and take the HSK exams later.

and remember, if you are on scholarship, dont miss your classese more than 1/3(usually) or you'll lose your chance for exams or thesis hand-in. some lecturers are easy going while others could be particularly concerned about attendance and such. if you cant take exams or your thesis was rejected, that means you flopped and that would most probably cancel your scholarship.

[kongli]

Thank you both for the replies.

Dumdumdum,

I am curious. How difficult are the lectures and grad school in general? Obviously it differs from program to program and class to class but I know roughly what kind of skill it takes to get a 7 on the HSK and it seems that even at that level reading and writing graduate level texts would be very difficult. What was your experience? Does grad school in China compare to Grad school in the U.S.?

Also, I won't have any trouble going to classes and taking tests, the difficult part will be passing them hehe.

Kongli

[dumdumdum]

it depends on the schools/university actually. for renmin university, they had a 'foreign students institution' where they conduct all-foreign-students' class, so thats a(few) notch easier than some other schools where foreign students are placed to study with local chinese. and they get to skip all the politico classes the local chinese had to take, like marxism and mao tse dong/deng xiaoping ideology. in master's degree there is no politico classes, however. the down side is you get to mix around with all foreign students and that is not really helpful to your chinese, plus if you happen to be in a class with a certain majority from the same country, they could be speaking their own language, be it english, french or korean, and you are not going to use your chinese much. for language class you got no choice its all foreigners' class.

HSK level 3 to level 8 is generally about junior high to high school chinese level in china. the target is for those with 400-2000 hrs of proper chinese language learning. with understanding of 600-3000 most common chinese characters. cant be too specific cos this is still a language learning thing... but you should at least be able to write a 500 words essay in the given exam time. essay writing is the weak point of most foreign students except the japanese (they share a semi-similiar writing system with china) so pay a little more attention to it. the more effective way is through reading and listening to proper news channels (could be boring). they are generally accurate in usage. variety shows and entertainment news have too much buzzwords and vocab that are 'non-official'. as for lessons, depends on what you are taking up... if it concerns classical chinese it could be tough to get a good score, but probably pass-able. if it is plain modern chinese then it shouldnt be a problem if you can make it to the main dish. class with local chinese could be a little tougher.

never been to grad school in US so i cant compare, and master's degree is more like gathering your own info for your thesis, instead of taking lectures in class. you will probably be given a research topic, or if you are lucky you can choose to have your own topic. but you could face lecturers who got a less than standard accent, hard to catch what he's saying etc. and beware, some lecturers also have rigid opinions, not so open-minded compared to other places in the world, so better get a rough idea about his stand before presenting yours, and understand where he's coming from when he's editing your paper (oh, asking your lecturer out for a simple meal or drinking session every fortnight/month could be helpful too). last but not least there are still day to day problems, like classmates who are 'too friendly' or 'too unfriendly' towards foreigners.