Can someone please give a detailed description of the foreign students' dorm at Fudan?

[Brandon263]

I'm starting a postgrad degree at Fudan this September and was just wondering what the accommodation for foreign students at Fudan is like, especially for CSC scholars. Are CSC postgrads housed in the same accommodation as paying students? And what is the foreign students' dorm at Fudan like?

I have searched the forum for descriptions of Fudan's foreign students' dorm, but all I got were subjective descriptions like "the dorms are decent." I was hoping to find out more about the following:

1. Does Fudan provide CSC (postgrad) scholars with single rooms? (Please say yes)

2. How large are the rooms and what amenities (air-conditioner, double/single bed, desk, cabinet, lamp, carpet, bedding, etc,) are provided?

3. Do CSC students at Fudan pay for their rooms' electricity?

4. Are there laundry machines in the dorm? How do students pay for them? (I ask because I’m at Nanshida, and they only just recently installed washing machines in our dorm…)

5. Does the CSC scholarship include food, or do you pay for that out of your allowance?

6. How large is the dorm and how many students live there? What's a rough breakdown of the students there: are most of them short-term language students, undergrads or postgrads?

7. Do the students in the dorm generally do stuff together or do they stay in their rooms and don’t really mingle?

Thanks everyone!!!

[anonymoose]

I've not seen the foreign students' dorms at Fudan, so I can't give much specific info, but from what I understand, rooms are individual, but paired up with a communal area (like a living room perhaps?) which is shared with one other person.

The dorms do have washing facilities. The disadvantage of the foreign students' dorm at Fudan's main campus is that it is the furthest building in the entire site from where the faculty buildings are. So either you will need a bicycle, or you'll end up spending quite a lot of time each day walking back and forth.

Again, I can't give very accurate info, but from what I have seen, I think probably the breakdown of foreign students between undergrad and language students is approximately half and half. However, the language students tend to be quite varied coming from all over the world (in other words, many Westerners), whereas the overwhelming majority of the undergrads are Korean. Korean people tend not to interact much with people from other countries.

[Brandon263]

Thanks anonymoose!!! The info about how students are paired in one living unit was especially helpful; We have roughly the same living arrangement here at Nanshida and I'm not particularly comfortable with it, so I might consider getting my own apartment in Shanghai.

Does anyone have additional info on what size the rooms are, what amenities the rooms have (so I know what to bring/what to prepare money for), and what CSC students have to pay for with their own money?

[Xiwang]

Here is an old blog post with pictures of the inside of a Fudan foreign student dorm:

http://goodriddancetobadnews.blogspot.com/2007/07/part-three-fudan-university-living.html

I've only visited the dorm on occasion and did not live there so I don't know if there are single rooms. However, the dual rooms have two beds side-by-side with a space between them. (Sort of like what you see in the 1950s TV shows where the husband and wife slept in single beds.)

Here is a picture of the front of the building:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/squarefaced/2317598349/

Each floor consists of a long hallway with the even numbered rooms facing toward the campus. The odd numbered rooms are on the front side of the building and face toward downtown. The dorm rooms are pretty nice, as Chinese dorms go, and have a shower and toilet in each room.

The ground floor area is pretty bare-bones in terms of having an inviting place to hang out. However, down the street is the "Korean Street" area with restaurants and bars. There's also Helen's Cafe, where a lot of foreign students go at night for drinking, Western food, and a great veggie burger.

http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/shanghai/listings/dining/cafes/has/helens-cafe/?most_viewed=1

[yuyun]

hey, there

i'm going to try answering your questions since i also CSC postgrad in fudan.

1. yes. all csc masters, phd, and senior scholars have their own rooms.

2. it;s around 3,5m x 5m for single room. you'll have your own bathroom and toilet, single bed, pretty good desk, ac, tv, small table, cabinet, chair.

3. starting this march, yes we have to pay electricity by ourselves. but it's still been discussing about it's future. for csc students, they give us around 200 kwh per month. if you exceed it, you have to pay.

4. every floors has washing machines. for one time laundry, you have to pay 3 RMB. u can purchase the card when you arrive here.

5. you have to pay food by yourself. the canteens are cheap and quite clean. so, don't be too worry.

6. the dorms has 23 floors and has two kitchens in each floors. each floors have around 30 rooms, single and double.

7. it's a quite difficult. it's all depend on you. if you like to hangout there are many places around fudan that you can visit. but for me personally, i'd like to stay in my room cause there are papers to do

that's it

i hope it help you

let me now if you have any other questions

[avanv]

Hey Just wanted to say I just found out I have been accepted to study at Fudan and will be living in the International Student Dorms! So I had many of these same questions and appreciate your post.

[k0823]

Hey!! I studied in Fudan last year and stayed at the Fudan Foreign Students' Dorm. Was able to see your post so maybe I can help you as well?

The Foreign Students dorm in Fudan is quite okay. I think this is way better than any other dormitories in and around the campus as they really took the needs of foreign students in consideration. However, most of the foreign scholars I knew in school preferred to get their own apartments at the nearby DongHe or at this area near Tesco. They told me that it was cheaper than the foreign dormitories. As for convenience, it's probably the same as the dorm doesn't really have a curfew. They are strict however in the sense that you cannot bring friends up to your room. They can only stay at the lobby.

The room is large enough for two. It comes with your own bathroom with a tub, a television set, a study table and a chair. You also have your own balcony. So the earlier you register, the better for some coz you get to choose your room. If you get rooms at the higher floors, you can get a room with the Pearl Tower as your view! The mattress they provide is quite thin. Some of my classmates bought from this room in the lobby selling mattresses for around 60RMB.

There are laundry rooms but they don't really act as good dryers. So that, at times, you will really have to hang your clothes either inside your room (this was what we did during the winter so the heater can heat them) or in your balcony. You will have to buy your own clothesline and sheets. But these are easy to buy since there's a nearby Walmart in school. You can buy a water dispenser fr. the company inside the campus for a fee which is refundable to you when you leave at the end of your term. During the summer, you can also rent a small ref at the convenience store in the dorm lobby.

As for the food, there's a convenience store in the lobby, the student canteen is also very near. Past 9PM, stalls set up outside the dorm gates so you can get that as well. They serve some of the best street food in town! Plus, there's so many places you can eat around the campus! It's nice to have a bike so you can easily go around the campus. Bikes sell for as cheap as 50 to 100RMB and you can sell it again to other students before you leave Shanghai.

I loved my stay there so hope I was able to help you out. You can check out my blog since I posted most of my Shanghai life in there. www.keisha0823.tumblr.com..