East China Normal University and Jiaotong

[Guest Wang Ke Zhou]

Can anyone comment on Shanghai schools? Specifically I would like to know about:

Jiao Tong, Shanghai Teachers University, East China Normal, and the east China University of Politics and Law.

Thanks,

Wang

[Guest bear196]

I'm planning to be in Shanghai for a summer course emphasising spoken Chinese. ECNU and Jiao Tong have short courses running 7th and 10th(?) th July. Anecdotally, here's the feedback I've gotten:

Reputation & Quality

Both are considered "better courses". The feedback from my research on ECNU and Jiaotong has been good and bad for both. Teacher skill and dedication has been the reason for bad comments at both. I would guess this is hit or miss and both places have good and bad teachers.

Location

Both quite central, with Jiaotong being really right in the heart of things and ECNU being a little further away. BTW cabs are very cheap in Beijing by the standards of intentaional cities, and about average for asia-ex Japan.

Foreigner friendly

I've called, spoken and emailed both. I get the impression both welcome the bucks, but neither have the standards of a overseas university regarding student relations. Pretty woeful actually.

At the end I decided to go with ECNU for two reasons

1) It is a language/teachers colleague and my Shanghai based friends thinks it may have better program structure than Jiaotong, which is an engineering school.

2) This one's a judgement call. Jiaotong seems to be more famous with foreigners (heard the line about it being Jang Zemin's alma mater many times from foreigners, but not from locals). ECNU seems to have a similar reputation as Jiaotong amongst locals. There are a few stories about BLCU's fame leading to a very high foreign population, lower chances to practice outside of the class and lack of responsiveness to student requests. Right or wrong, I also called this one for ECNU. If my extrapolation is right (and admittedly it may well not be!) Jiaotong may be better for international networking.

Cheers

David