Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies (IUP) at Tsinghua

[wnmprk]

I was wondering if anyone else was admitted into IUP at Tsinghua for this upcoming academic year (or summer). I thought it would be nice if we could all share information and answer each others' questions through this forum. I feel like IUP hasn't sent out much information about the program. I did email the program rep at UC Berkeley and got responses but I still have A LOT of questions. IUP doesn't seem like a normal study abroad program where they send you huge packets of information through mail, or a step-by-step guide of some sort.....

Anyways, please feel free to respond if you've gone to IUP before or if you're planning to go this upcoming academic school year!

-Thanks

[togi86]

Hi wnmprk, I've been admitted into the fall semester program. What sort of questions did you have? My main concern (at the moment) is trying to find out about accommodation options..

[roddy]

On accommodation - assuming you're not going into dorms, look for information about apartments / apartment-hunting in Wudaokou and Haidian. These are the areas Tsinghua is in, and there are a ton of foreign students around here, so there's actually a fair bit of information, both on here and on other sites.

We have a few IUP graduates knocking about - if you post up specific questions you may get the answers you're looking for.

[wnmprk]

YES! Housing.....I have no idea what I'm doing right now... I was going to do homestay and I emailed the person in charge. S/he told me that there are only 4 to 5 Tsinghua affiliated families that IUP trusts with homestay, so now I feel like I need to find an apartment which seems a little difficult (with my limited Chinese). Apparently, the single room dorms are really hard to get. Also, the IUP rep said more information about housing should be out by late June or early July so I'm trying to be patient till then.

Did you buy your plane ticket yet togi86? If so, what date did are you flying into China? I've yet to buy mine because I have no idea when to go. I would like to go a little earlier and maybe do some tourist-y things but I'm not sure if my Chinese is good enough to travel alone...

[togi86]

I was planning on doing the homestay too. But I wanted to find out about past students' experiences first. If it ends up that I have to look for an apartment, from what I've read on this forum as well as the IUP google group forum, the best bet would be to arrive in Beijing first and then look for an apartment. There's an Accommodation Handbook that Ms Zhu has posted on the IUP google group forum that's pretty helpful - it includes a list of renting do/don'ts, phrases, role-plays, etc. Past/leaving IUP students will also post up a couple of ads on the IUP forum.

I haven't bought my plane ticket yet. I'm planning on getting into China around July to get a couple of lessons before IUP starts, but this will depend on family/work/study. Basically, I'm trying to cram as much Chinese as humanly possible into my brain before the end of the year. I haven't decided which city I'll be in before IUP starts, but I'll be in Beijing by 21 August at the latest. As for travelling in China, I'd assume that English is pretty common in major cities like Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai, or even touristy places like Macau. I think they'd be okay for travelling alone too. But for regional areas, I don't really know. Maybe you could post on the travelling section of the forum to see what the other forum members think?

[wnmprk]

Like togi86 mentioned, has anyone on this forum had any experience with the homestay option at IUP?

[stephaniepainter3]

Did any of you receive the CSC Scholarship?

[OneEye]

I would encourage you to get there early to do some touristy things if that's an option. Don't worry about your Chinese level. My Chinese was pretty bad when I moved to Taipei, but I got around just fine and did some fun stuff the first few weeks I was here. You won't have a lot of time for that once your program starts, assuming IUP is anything like ICLP (it's supposed to be), so take advantage of the opportunity. You'll probably run into some situations where your language ability gets in the way, but that's good for you. You just need to be willing to laugh your mistakes off.

[Quantumn]

Just finished IUP today, so I figured I'd write up my thoughts.

Summary

IUP is a very expensive, very intense, and somewhat pretentious program that produces results. The only programs that are really comparable are ICLP in Taiwan and Hopkins in Nanjing. If you are an advanced student pursuing better Chinese at any cost, IUP is likely a better choice than the any of the other private or university run Chinese programs in the mainland, if for no other reason than IUP has the highest concentration of advanced students. If you are a beginning student or don’t have the time or money to do an intensive program like IUP, private tutoring or one of the many summer programs in Beijing may be a better choice.

Pros

· 1 to 3 Student Teacher Ratio

· Excellent teachers

· Diligent and intelligent classmates

Cons

· Expensive ($4800 for summer, $8500 for one semester)

· Limited Integration with Qinghua

· Will IUP be able to retain its teachers?

Curriculum

I thought I was a motivated student before coming to IUP, spending a little under 70 hours a week studying. That quickly turned into 85+ hours a week when I attended in Summer, and only started to let up after attending IUP for about 4 months. A friend that attended PiB said IUP is definitely more intense, and another friend who attended ACC says that the workloads at IUP and ACC are about the same.

One of the biggest advantages of IUP is the core classes, which start at university 3^rd year Chinese equivalent, level 1, and go up to level 5. These classes are IUP’s biggest advantage over hiring a tutor; they ensure that not only do you understand the core few thousand Chinese 单词 and 句型 but that you also know the 搭配 and 用法, something which is nearly impossible to do via independent study (I’ve tried), and very difficult to do with a tutor (I’ve also tried). This is also something that the low student teacher ratio and daily 1 on 1 classes are needed for, as 搭配 and 用法 can only be adequately addressed with massive amounts of student-teacher interaction. The ancient Chinese series excellent, and the option to take custom courses is also fun, but can be hit and miss. For example, in Spring I took a course on modern Chinese financial reform （金融行业改革）. This was great because I took it with other students that had sufficient Chinese ability and substance background to explain things like effects of QE on the real RMB/USD exchange rate, but because the teacher didn’t have a finance background, we had to find the class materials and do conduct much of the discussion ourselves.

Students

The students at IUP are nearly all top caliber. The student body of 60 is about 1/3 professionals taking time off to learn Chinese (like me), 1/3 Masters or PhD students, and 1/3 undergraduates or recent grads. IUP is where many Fullbrighters, Blakemore Fellows, and Light Fellows go. Before IUP I considered myself quite motivated, but there’s nothing like peer pressure to make sure you study as much as possible. When I joined IUP, I thought my Chinese was pretty good, only after completing the entry test did I realize that I was only at level 3 out of 5 for the core classes. Only teaching intermediate and advanced Chinese is also very helpful to create an all-Chinese environment, something which to my knowledge only IUP has. IUP also has a very active alumni network, which is active in posting jobs and organizing lectures and activities in Beijing and Washington DC.

Teachers

I’ve only had two types of teachers at IUP, good teachers and excellent teachers. I’ve heard of other students who didn’t like an individual teacher, but this is rare. Teachers usually spend at least as much time preparing for class as teaching class, and it shows. Combined with the 1 to 3 student teacher ratio, you can expect to spend a lot of time correcting Chinese mistakes that you never knew you had (trust me, these mistakes exist). Also, all teachers I interacted with were more than happy to give me extra help. This extra effort included things like coming to provide feedback over the weekend to do a speech competition, correcting a 5000 character essay, correcting daily essays that were not part of the curriculum, and helping me set up a post-IUP independent study syllabus. Another important aspect is that IUP teachers are at IUP year round, where as many of the summer programs only hire teachers for a few months out of the year. This means that IUP teachers tend to be much more familiar with the teaching materials than other programs.

For teachers, IUP is the top choice. Many IUP teachers taught at PIB, ACC or HIB before being accepted into IUP. However IUP’s teacher salary is no longer competitive, which means that over the coming years, some of the best IUP teachers may leave the program.

Environment

Beijing, despite the pollution, is still probably the best place to run an intensive Mandarin program for those who intend to work or study in mainland China. Even though the Qinghua-Berkeley combination might sound prestigious on paper, these institutions do little to improve the program. For Qinghua, auditing classes is technically a possibility, but can only be done within a few select departments. Qinghua also makes many matters more difficult than necessary in terms of visa and student ID card. That being said, trying to create a collaborative program with a Chinese university is notoriously difficult, and with the possible exception of Hopkins in Nanjing, I don’t think anybody has found a good model.

[OneEye]

and helping me set up a post-IUP independent study syllabus

I'd be interested in hearing about this. At this point I couldn't imagine it being anything besides "read a lot, both in your field and in general, watch a bunch of movies, attend lectures, talk to a lot of people, etc." In fact, Tadoku starts tomorrow, what better time than the present to start reading as much as you can?

It's my impression that IUP has had a teacher retention problem for several years now. Contrast that with (the much less expensive at ~$12,000 for three quarters) ICLP, where some of the teachers have been there for decades (and some of them wrote much of the material that the IUP stuff was based on). Not that any of that makes ICLP any better than IUP. My impression is that they're about the same, and that students at both schools end up speaking in an overly formal, bookish manner because that's all they've been exposed to due to a lack of free time. So get out there and pay attention to how people really speak, and modify accordingly!

"Pretentious" is precisely the word, but at least you know! Most ICLP students I've known don't see it, but it comes across when they speak in strings of 成語 they learned from 思想與社會.

[rachelxhan]

For people who have attended IUP previously or are thinking about attending IUP, did you compare IUP with Tsinghua's own Chinese language program? What are the pros and cons? Is the added value of intensity, small and flexible course level, and network worth the relatively much higher tuition?

 

While attending IUP, are students allowed to audit courses at Tsinghua or Beida? In Chinese, of course.

[Triling]

Wow IUP sounds amazing but it seems like it wouldn't be possible to work while being enrolled...