Southwest University for Nationalities

[vettloffah]

Has anyone had any experience with this school? I've seen SWUFE talked about a lot but not this school.

Any information would be great, thanks.

[Marcus Ray]

i study there.

what do you want to know?

[djkasumi]

Well, since no one has posted any questions, I'll take a shot:

Anyone got any ideas on average class sizes for Chinese language courses here?

Any opinions on teachers etc?

How is the campus?

This uni might be one of my back up choices -- but my first priority would be going somewhere in Kunming. I know SWUFE is also praised often. I guess it all ultimately depends on where my fiancee can move for work.

[sapphire]

Which text books do they use for the biggnner-intermediate classes?

[jmido8]

I go to south west university for nationalities 西南民族大学. However, I'm not directly enrolled with their school, I'm here through another study abroad program and I take classes taught by their teachers on campus with other internetational students. I'v heard the direct enroll program is about the same as my program in terms of how good they are. I'm not sure what book they use but my program uses different books for each level. The beginners all use the Integrated Chinese books and I think after book 2 part 2, they switch to the "Road to Success" book starting at Upper Elementary 进步篇1. The most upper level class is using the 冲刺篇 red/purplish book from the series. I'm not sure what the direct enroll program is using though.

The classes for both my program and the direct enroll program seems to be anywhere between 4-12 people depending on your level. The lower levels seem to have lot more students while the upper advanced levels only have like 2-4 students. I love my teachers, they're all really good. I have no clue about direct enroll so I can't comment.

SWUN actually has 2 campuses, old and new. Old campus is right in the heart of the city around first ring road while new campus is out somewhere near 3rd ring road. It's about a 30 minute - 1 hour bus ride between campuses. Even longer if you take the public bus. New campus is much much bigger and it's super nice but their is nothing really around the campus. The area around new campus is super boring but since it's pretty much barren outside of the campus, they have stores, ktvs, food streets, and other cool stuff built onto campus to keep everyone entertained and happy. You can also take a private bus that goes back and forth between new and old campus for 3kuai but it's a good 25-40 minute bus ride. Doing anything outside of campus though will usually require a 30+ min ride of some sort. Don't get me wrong though, New campus is much prettier, much bigger and it almost has like a little town worth of stuff to do built inside and around it.

Old campus is considerably smaller, it takes about 10 minutes to walk from one side of campus to the other but it's still nice and scenic. Old campus is really cool because it's built right on a Tibetan street so there's lots of culture and really good food right around campus. There's also lots of awesome places outside of campus that are within walking distance and even more places within a short 10-16kuai taxi ride. I go to old campus and I love it.