Looking for help deciding on major/university

[LinYue]

Hi friends!   Although I only just recently created an account for this forum, I've been lurking here for a few weeks. Next year I hope to apply for the Chinese Government Scholarship for a bachelor's degree for 2015-2016. Recently, thoughts regarding the decisions I have to make keep swirling around in my head.  I've looked through older posts, and I couldn't find any that deal with this particular issue, so I thought I'd write them down and maybe you guys can help me out!

 

I know next to nothing of Chinese Mandarin, but have been studying Japanese on my own for a few years. In my country, there are incredibly few opportunities to study Japanese and none at a university level, so I was thinking of applying for a degree on Japanese.... but suddenly I feel like it'd be weird, to go to China to learn Japanese! The other major I was considering was Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, which I hear is quite popular... currently I teach English at an institute, so I thought it'd be interesting to continue teaching as a career. I'm torn!    Of course, the prospect of living with another language (Chinese) and having the possibility of learning it fluently is exciting enough on its own. I love languages! 

 

The other thing I was thinking about was which college to attend... so far, both Sichuan University and Xi'an International Studies University have caught my eye. My ideal city to live in would be a place that is not too big, has a lot of natural/historical beauty around it, and you can really experience Chinese culture, while also having the possibility to find basic Western goods... also, that it has good food! 

 

Do any of you have any comments or suggestions?   Thanks! 

[Chris Two Times]

Why not take a look at the Japanese Government Scholarships as well (Monbukagakusho)?

http://www.studyjapan.go.jp/en/toj/toj0302e.html

 

Warm regards,

Chris Two Times

[anonymoose]

Well, going to China to learn Japanese is somewhat unconventional. Nevertheless, I know that lots of Korean people go to China to study English (at Fudan University in Shanghai, for example), so it certainly is not completely unheard of.

 

However, be aware that academic standards are not very high in China. You may well find that you more or less have to teach yourself anyway, even if you are enrolled on a university course.

 

Also, you didn't mention what kind of course you were considering pursuing. If you want to do a degree course, it will also involve many other compulsory courses not related to your subject (computing, English and others) which are usually pointless and a waste of time. These will be tough if you can't speak Chinese.

[LinYue]

@Chris

I have seen that scholarship, but unfortunately I am too old, at least for the bachelor's degree You have to be under 22 when you go to Japan in April... I turn 22 this March.

What I was considering was maybe getting my bachelor's on linguistics, Chinese, or TCAAFL and then applying for a master's degree scholarship in Japan.

@anonymoose

Yes, I am pursuing a degree course The other day I was checking to see the ranking of the universities compared to the ones in my country, and SCU seems to have the same rank as one of the one I briefly attended, before deciding that Computer Science wasn't my thing perhaps I am wrong in assuming this, but I can see the quality of the teaching being similar: the most important part is studying independently and using the courses as guidelines.

Thank you both for replying! Perhaps I should go in the direction of a Chinese lang. degree after all...

[Takeshi]

I personally learnt a lot of Japanese in China; during my exchange I spoke more Japanese than Chinese, and definitely improved my Japanese a lot more than my Chinese. But that was all incidential; I went there with the intention of studying Chinese, it's just it was situationally easier to learn Japanese.

 

Basically, I was put in a foreigner dorm, and all my classmates in the 国际汉语学院 classes were all non-Chinese people there to learn Chinese. I hung out mostly with the Japanese crowd, and then, that's what happened. I was already fairly functional in Japanese before I went though.

 

Basically, what I'm saying is, if you go to China to "study Chinese", and you already have a decent knowledge of Japanese, you will possibly get to meet a lot of Japanese people there studying Chinese as well, and in the meantime end up getting a chance to use and improve on your Japanese a lot. I didn't plan it, but that's what happened to me.