Undergraduate Degree in China – A Medical Student's Perspective

[anonymoose]

This thread is really inspired by the Graduate School in China - A History Major's Perspective thread, which seems to have been very useful for others thinking of graduate studies in China. As there are some differences between undergraduate and graduate studies, I thought it might be useful to share my undergraduate experience here, in case anyone is considering coming to China to do a bachelor's degree, and wants some more perspective.

I think this is going to be a post in progress. I'm sure people will have some questions, so if they are generally relevant to the topic, I will edit this first post and try to include the answers here, to keep everything in one place.

My Background

I am a British male, in my thirties (I was 31 when I started the degree in China). I graduated from Oxford University with an MPhys (Masters) and DPhil (PhD) in physics in 2000 and 2004 respectively. I came to Shanghai at the end of 2006 as a physics teacher, though my main motivation for doing so was to continue improving my Chinese, which I had been self-studying since around 2000.

I spent a year teaching English in Dalian from 2004-2005, and over that year, managed to greatly build upon the foundation in Chinese that I had managed to lay in the UK mainly from books and language exchange partners. I did take the old HSK a few times, the last being in 2007 or 2008, in which I managed to score a high 8, but unfortunately never got into the 9-11 band. I should state, though, that I was learning Chinese purely out of interest - I never had any specific goals, and it certainly wasn't with the intention of using Chinese for work or studies. I took the HSKs really just to gauge my own level - the certificate was not a requirement for entering the course I applied for.

Teaching had never been something I planned to pursue long term and after much contemplation, I decided to study clinical medicine in China, thereby having much more opportunity to further improve my Chinese, whilst at the same time working towards something that would essentially guarantee a professional career on returning to the UK.

Applying to Universities

Undergraduate applications are made to Chinese universities around March/April time in the year in which one intends to start.

One of the first things that anyone interested in applying to study at Chinese universities will have noticed is how hard it is to get any reliable detailed information on the various courses and what they entail. In contrast to British universities, which often (or at least used to before the digital age) publish thick prospectuses, and always list year-by-year course outlines on their usually easy-to-navigate websites, Chinese Universities' websites, if they are working at all, are a nightmare to wade through, and often do not contain much, if any, specific course information at all.

In the end, I settled on Fudan University in Shanghai. The main reason is that many, possibly most, Chinese Universities have an age limit of 30 years for undergraduate applicants, and since I was already 31, most options were already ruled out. The other thing is that, for independent applicants (as opposed to those on, for example, government scholarships), one has to take a series of entrance exams (more about those later) and these tend to be held more or less at the same time across China, making applying to more than one university essentially impossible. I had also considered Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, which is also very reputable in China, but since I couldn't be in two cities at once, I just opted for Shanghai, simply because I was already there and it was less hassle to do so.

The application itself just involves completing some forms, and if you have previous qualifications, then providing evidence of these. The application office asked to see my original degree certificates, but when I explained they were back in the UK, they accepted just photocopies. There is also an application fee of several hundred yuan.

The next step was to take the entrance exams, described below.

Chinese University Entrance Exams

There are differents sets of exams depending on whether one is applying for an arts subject or a science subject. For sciences, there are four exams - in Chinese, English, Maths and Sciences.

 

1. English: For native speakers, this exam will obviously be no problem. However, I would say that the level of English is reasonably high. There were some mistakes in the exam paper though.

 

2. Chinese: Again, the level of the exam is quite high. If I remember correctly, it mostly involved reading. Much is in the form of multiple choice questions. There is also some filling in the gaps. There wasn't much in the way of extended writing though. Some questions involved famous quotes in Chinese (so called 名人名言), which frankly is essentially impossible unless you are well read in Chinese. I think you'd have to be at the upper end of the HSK scale to do justice to this paper.

 

3. Maths: The syllabus seems to be based on the Chinese school maths syllabus, so has differences to what one learns in the UK. I would say one needs at least a good A-level in maths to be able to handle this. There are of course some easy questions, but the exam also touches on things like series, limits, complex numbers, trigonometry, probability and so on. Curiously, I don't remember any calculus being involved, possibly because this is not taught as standard in Chinese senior schools.

 

4. Sciences: Involves physics, chemistry and biology.

 

Needless to say, all the exams are in Chinese (apart from the English exam, obviously), so one will need to understand at least basic words for things like acid, base, energy, power and so on, to understand the questions in the science exam.

 

From Fudan University, at least, syllabuses for the exams, including practise question booklets, are available at a price from the admissions office. I would recommend anyone taking these exams to try and get hold of this material. If you are good at maths and sciences, you could probably get through without it, but it always helps to know what kind of things might come up. If I can find my books (if I haven't thrown them away), I will provide more specific examples of the types of questions.

 

Having said all of the above, whether one passes the exams or not depends on the pass mark. I never actually got to find out what my scores were, or what the pass marks were. All I can say is that whilst the exams are not trivial, I suspect the pass mark is fairly low. So don't worry too much if you come out feeling like you've only managed to answer half of the questions.

 

Being Accepted and Registering at the University

 

You are able to find out whether your application has been successful or not from the university's website. It just gives a list of all the candidate numbers that were successful.

 

You should then receive by post all the paperwork you need for applying for a study visa (X visa).

 

On thing to bear in mind is that the visa is just a ticket to entering the country. Once in, you then need to apply for a residence permit within 30 days. A lot of people wish to come to China in advance and travel about a bit before term starts. That may be possible for a week or two, but really, you need to make sure your visa doesn't expire before you can apply for the residence permit, and that is unlikely to be on the first day of term.

 

Firstly, foreigners are required to undergo a medical exam, which involves things like a blood test, chest X-ray, ECG, ultrasound, eye test and so on. It usually takes a few days for the results to come back, and you need the document to apply for the residence permit. At some universities, a mobile clinic will come to the university and conduct the exam on a particular day at the beginning of term. If not, then you will have to make a trip to the official clinic that handles immigration exams.

 

If you are living in the university foreign students' dorms, then accommodation will pretty much be sorted out for you. Incidentally, foreign students are not allowed to live in the same dorms as the locals. This is a pity in some respects, because it means you have less opportunity to interact with locals, but frankly, if you get to see the local dorms, you'll probably be very grateful that you are not living there. At Fudan, local students live four people to a room. Conditions are slowly improving, but when I first started, the local dorms did not have any heating or air conditioning, and for safety reasons, students were not allowed to use their own. So essentially, they had no choice but to put up with sub-zero temperatures in the winter, and high thirties in the summer (Celcius obviously). I have heard that other universities even have up to eight students per room. In the case of the foreign students' dorm, as far as I know, each person had their own room.

 

I chose to live out because I had been renting in Shangai previously anyway, and having already been a university student for several years in the UK, I didn't really want to regress back to that life again.

 

One disadvantage with living out, though, is that you are a bit separated from the student community. Often official notifications are passed to the class representative （班长）, and that person is then expected to spread the word to everyone in the class. The word spreads in the dorms, but unless the class rep is responsible enough to make sure that the word reaches you on the outside, you will often be the last person to know about any news, if you find out about it at all. These days everyone having a smart phone with apps like Weixin （微信）, communication is much easier, but even so, you'll probably end up missing out on some campus activities.

 

Renting is much easier if you can speak Chinese. All you need to do is find an area you'd like to live in, and just walk into an estate agent in that area. Estate agents are pretty numerous in China. Any streets that have dwellings are likely to have at least one, and possibly have several estate agents. Just tell them what kind of apartment you'd like to live in and your budget, and they should be able to show you around some properties straight away.

 

You may be lucky and the first place you see meets your requirements, but I recommend looking at a few places just to get an idea of the variation in quality and price. Many rental places in Shanghai are pretty old and dilapidated. Often I had to look at 10+ apartments before I found one that I'd be comfortable in. In my case, my main criteria were location, state of decoration (ie. clean and new) and light level (as I don't like living in permanent darkness - my first place in Shanghai, on the ground floor, was dark because surrounding buildings blocked out most of the natural light).

 

Regulations seem to vary from city to city, but in Shanghai, the tennant has to pay a fee of 35% of one month's rent to the agent (and the landlord also has to pay this amount). It is also standard to pay three months rent up front, plus a deposit equal to one months rent.

 

Once the rental contract has been signed, you will need to register at the local police station (ask the estate agent where it is if you cannot find out yourself). You will also need a photocopy of the landlord's ID card, as well as a copy of your rental contract (and possibly passport). The local police station (Public Security Bureau or PSB as they are often called) will then issue you with a temporary residence document. This is important as you will need it to apply for your residence permit.

 

If you are living in the student dorms, the university should be able to handle the residence permit application for you. If not, you will then need to apply for it yourself, in the case of Shanghai at the Exit and Entry Administration Bureau. You will need a completed application form with your photograph, a document from the university confirming that you are a registered student there, the medical examination certificate, and the temporary residence document. You will need photocopies of some of these things, as well as your passport, but you can get these at the time when submitting the application. You will then be able to pick up your passport about a week later (in Shanghai, the only pick-up point is in Minsheng Road, in Pudong, regardless of where you submitted the application), or have it couriered to you at extra expense. The residence permit itself costs 800 yuan for a 1-year permit.

 

My Classmates

 

In the first year, students seem to be separated into classes at random. At least, it is not done on the basis of subject. I don't really remember exactly how many students there were per class, but at an estimate, I'd say probably forty to fifty. The thing is that the class doesn't really have any significance beyond administration. You're only likely to regularly meet those classmates who are studying the same or a related subject, in which courses are shared.

 

My class was composed mainly of local Chinese students, obviously, but there were a number of other foreign students, mainly from Korea. Also, I'm not sure how representative this is of the normal situation, but there were a fair number of Chinese ethnic minority students - Uighurs, Kazakhs, Huis and so on, some of which are indistinguishable from the Hans, but many others different in appearance and behaviour.

 

To be continued...

[somethingfunny]

Looking forward to seeing updates to this post.  kdavid's graduate school post was a massive help to me, and I'm sure this will become a massive help to others. (As well as your general take on things being interesting).

[Flickserve]

This would be a really great post. I have been told a number of overseas students do medicine in China. I have often wondered on the process of getting in, how they view the style of teaching, logistics of registration and if they want to go back their own country, their registration issues, if any.

[Chris Two Times]

anonymoose,

 

Many, many thanks for posting this. These first-hands accounts are incredibly useful for those of us contemplating such a move. Postings such as yours and kdavid's take a bit of the mystery out of the process.

 

I will eagerly await any future posts you add to this thread. Many thanks once again!

 

Warm regards,

Chris Two Times

[abcdefg]

Thanks, Anonymoose. I will follow the account of your progress with interest.

 

Several years ago, I was briefly affiliated with the Kunming Medical University as volunteer faculty. Had thought it might allow me to make a small contribution to the field, while my ulterior motive was meeting local medical friends. (I'm a retired US physician.)

 

But I didn't have direct student contact and mainly worked in helping some bilingual faculty members prepare to train more foreign students. The university was hoping to attract more students from such places as Thailand, Vietnam, India and Pakistan who knew English as a second language and instruct them in English instead of in Chinese, at least during their pre-clinical years.

 

It's a project which is still in progress, though I dropped out and am no longer part of it.

[roddy]

Thanks for doing this, anonymoose, look forward to updates. 

[gato]

Is there going to be a Part 2 soon?

[abcdefg]

I was wondering the same thing.

[anonymoose]

Is there going to be a Part 2

 

Nope. Further info will be added to part 1.

 

soon?

 

Probably not. But eventually.

[Flickserve]

Here are some questions

How many medical students per year intake? How many actually graduate?

Is the teaching all done in English? Or western medicine taught in Chinese? Are you studying using english textbooks or Chinese textbooks?

I was told a number of years ago that some Universities based their medical teaching around the German system (a throwback when China and Gemany had a very good relationship). any comments about that.

Is the teaching mainly didactic or a fair degree of problem solving small group discussions?

Patient contact - do you sit around just watching Dr-patient interactions or are you let loose to talk to patients? Are you allowed to touch patients and examine them on your own?

Is the course split into traditional preclinical and clinical divisions?

Are you expected to do a research project during your time at medical school?

How long is the houseman/intern period? In UK, it's been extended to 2 years.