Which university

September 2007 I’m going to be spending a year studying in Beijing. It’s costing a lot of money and is involving large bank loans so I want to make the right choice of university. I was thinking about BLCU, as the teacher I had last year (at a UK uni) was from that university and I can honestly say that she was the best teacher I’ve ever had.

The teaching style was, (working from New Practical Chinese Reader), the new words would be written on the board and we’d go over those. Then she would pick a few words and we’d have to make a sentence from them. Then we’d add more sentences until we had a short paragraph. We would repeat this together and then one at a time. Then we’d work on the dialogues from the book and then try to say the dialogue without looking at the book. That’s a brief layout of the class, (obviously there was more involved, grammar work etc) and it seemed to work for us.

I’ve just started to look at BNU. I don’t know anyone who has been there but am I right in thinking the class sizes are smaller than BLCU? Is BNU a good university to go to? As I’m spending pretty much my life’s savings and then some, I don’t want to make a mistake. I know a few people who studied Chinese at University of Science and Technology Beijing and feel they made a mistake by spending the year there.

I’m just looking for a brief comparison of the two universities (BLCU v BNU) or some brief positive/negative comments from people who have been there.

Also, is anyone currently studying Chinese at a UK university but spending their year in China next year (Sep ’07)? It’d be nice if we all got to know each other before we went.

Hi,

I haven't been to either of they universities but I figured I'd throw in my two cents.

When I initally looked around most of the universities seemed to have fairly slow standards but most of those comments were from 2002 to 2004. It looks like they've all gotten better over the last couple of years.

The real thing you want to figure out is what you are trying to do?

• Learn to speak - Go to a private school.
  
• Learn to read and write - Got to the universities.
  
• What level do you want?
  

Basically it takes a long time to learn to write characters. At the universities they try to teach reading, writing, speaking and listening at the same rate. The private schools focus on speaking and listening which can be learnt a lot faster.

Also what level are you and what level do you want to get to? I've currently a beginer and I want to be able to read notices, menus, signs and have normal converations. I'm hoping to get to this level after about 6 months doing my own study and private school.

The other thing that you might want to think about is that you can get a part time job over here and live on the cheap. If you get the right contract they'll fly you over, provide accomodation, schooling and pay you. You won't get a great wage but if you have about $2000 to set yourself up then it should be sweet.

So in summary:

• What are you trying to do?
  
• What level are you at the moment?
  
• What level do you want to be at the end?
  
• What is your budget?
  
• What kinds of lifestyle do you want?
  

I'm planning on studying Chinese for many years. I want to be able to hold conversations with people, watch TV shows. I want to be able to communicate with people without difficulty.

I'm a beginner. I can read and write about 800 words. My listening skills are dreadful though. It's important to me that I can read and write as well as I can speak. I don't want to be illiterate. I think a university is the best way to go, I'm just not sure which one. As I said, I know people who have been to what they consider to be the wrong university. I don't want to make that same mistake as financially I'll be unable to rectify it.

Hello,

I have been in China 2 years now. first as a student then as a teacher.

Personally I think that I might choose a nice second tier city such as Dalian or Qingdao to study in rather than Beijing. The main advantages are:

• Much cheaper
  
• blue sky and nice beaches
  
• enough foreingers to have friends but not all over the place
  
• pronouciation still very close to standard mandarin
  
• can do weekend trips to beijing
  
• fewer traffic jams
  
• and if you hear for the 'Dark side' (I am not) then you will find chinese girls are much more curious about you in these cities. In Beijing or Shanghai you are another poor foreinger
  I think that Beijing wins hands down on nightlife but that is assuming you can get to the main areas. You had better check where the university is because bejing traffic jams aint going nowhere for several hours a day and you have to pay for both time and distance.
  I think for 6000Y a month budget you will live a rather comfortable life in Dalian or Qingdao or Xiamen (although not sure about local accent down there) but in Beijing or Shanghai you could find yourself running out of cash with 10 days still left to go.

If you come to Qingdao get in touch and I can show you around. Here there are two main universities Qingdao University and Qingdao Ocean University. In Dalian there is the university of technology the maritime university and the economics university that are all supposed to be fine.

good luck.