Peking University

[BanZhiYun]

@Adrian From what I know, there is. You can probably sign up for it on the registration day.

@Toro & @Adrian, when are you guys getting here?

[Toro]

ZhongGuanXinYuan is amazing!! It's better than my expectations. My roommate is German and he is a very nice person too. I still have a problem ordering the food though, most of the restaurants have no pinyin..

 

Sorry for the late reply, BanZhiYun, I just got the internet access. Have you guys registered yet? Been raining for the two days..I'm all wet going back and forth dorm-campus.

[BanZhiYun]

I need to post an update about the Bachelor studies in PKU. Simply put, Chinese language and literature major is amazing. Much more than I ever expected.

[edelweis]

@BanZhiYun : looking forward to reading it !

[jobm]

Hello guys. I would like to know how is grad school in PKU. How is the admission process? How about the academic environment? Would it be different from other typical universities in China?

[BanZhiYun]

@jobm Which major are you asking for? I think you can find the app process for foreigners here isd.pku.edu.cn. Does anyone have a good advice on how to pick up with Chinese history? I even bough 初中 textbooks, but I need something very general. We have a compulsory course in History for 2 semesters (run by the History department) and it's killing me. I have an insane time finding out the names of people within the text.

[roddy]

Banzhiyun, that's probably a good new topic - we have a few history enthusiasts on here, but they might not be reading the PKU topic...

[Toro]

Hi @Job I just managed to find a time to check this forum again (it's a long Lunar New Year holiday here in Beijing now, so I have ample free time).

 

Since some students will also read this forum as well, I would tell you my knowledge about Peking University -- Beida as a shorter abbreviation of Beijing Daxue 北京大学--, my studying experience there, and its comparison to other Chinese universities, particularly its archrival Tsinghua University. I will answer your questions regarding its difference with other Chinese universities, and the academic environment inside Beida from what I learned here. Perhaps this could be helpful not only for you but also for other prospective students of Beida.

 

To start, for local Chinese, Beida is a really, really prestigious university in China. To compare Beida or Tsinghua with Harvard or MIT might be an understatement: Both Beida or Tsinghua do not release their admission statistics, but unofficial counts measure their acceptance rate at between 0.1 and 0.3 percent, with around 3,000 students accepted annually compared to total 3 million applicants throughout China.  For comparison, acceptance rate of Harvard University in the US stands at approximately 6 percent every year. Well, the acceptance rates for an international student like me might not be that competitive, but you will nevertheless still enjoy the prestige. Just take a middle-class train in China and say "我是北京大学留学生" (I am an international student at Peking University) and the people sitting alongside you will be overwhelmed with awe. 

 

Beida, which has irrefutable academic excellence in social sciences from politics, economics, law to literature, is famous for its "rebellious" academic nature. They are proud for having critical view towards communism and socialist principles, instead leaning towards democracy. I was taught by a professor who has the guts to openly criticize Xi Jinping and said clearly in front of the classroom "I do not like that guy". The professor also described founding father Mao Zedong as a "monster" and referred the Chinese Communist Party as "a cancer" to the society. Meanwhile, my friend studying economics also had that same experience, with her professor openly criticizing a top Chinese central bank official and his policies as "stupid".

 

This what differentiates Beida to Tsinghua, with the latter known for its conservative nature (you will never find that kind of professors in Tsinghua). Tsinghua students, for instance, was not involved in the 1989 Tiananmen protest, with the movement led by Beida students. The common view here is that the CCP generally hates Peking University graduates for its rebellious nature and pro-democracy political views, so they recruited and promoted conservative guys from Tsinghua instead. That's why you have the so-called Tsinghua cliqué in the Chinese government (China's leaders such as Xi Jinping and Hu Jintao studied in Tsinghua, and most decision-making Politburo body members also Tsinghua graduates).  

 

“People from our university likes to voice criticisms such as ‘this policy is bad’ or ‘that policy is stupid’, which sometimes made us disliked by the people from the government,” my professor in Beida once said. “Students in Tsinghua tend to be very pragmatic,” he argued. 

 

But, make no mistake, Tsinghua is richer and definitely is offering better facilities than Beida. Honestly, I was overwhelmed when I first entered the Tsinghua campus. Well, our library (claimed to be the biggest in Asia) might be larger, but their campus complex is definitely more modern and has better facade, in my own personal opinion. Tsinghua alumni, many of who enjoyed big career success in China's major state-owned enterprises, apparently donated a huge amount of money to their former campus. Tsinghua's reputation as a top engineering school in China is also unrivaled; not even Beida came close.

 

About the academic environment of Beida, this is interesting. I am enrolled in an English-taught public policy programs where Chinese students only account for 5 to 6 pupils out of around 30 students in the classroom, and my experience with the Chinese students are amazing. But, I noticed the opposite of that experience was true for the Chinese-taught programs, where the Chinese locals account for the majority of the students.

 

The academic competition among Chinese local students is intense. I have two friends from Russia and South Korea who studied different Chinese-taught majors in Beida but both complained the same thing: That they had tough times in Beida because the Chinese students – especially the high achievers in the class – did not really like to form a studying group with the international students. This is because the Chinese students in Beida view the friendship as obstacle to their academic success.

 

Some of the Chinese students, my friends said, see international students like us as second-tier students who will only drag their academic scores down, given our limited Chinese language proficiency and lack of diligence in our studying attitude. That's what all my friends in the Chinese-taught majors said (I am happy if there is another student in Chinese-taught majors in this forum who has different views and is willing to share his experience). Well, that is an understandable studying culture in a university that is filled by China's creme de la creme, the most genius and most ambitious youngsters in the country.

 

The academic ambition in Tsinghua might be similar. Another friend of mine studying there said this to me:

 

“No matter how much efforts you put, you will never be able to get close to the Chinese students as close as they are with each other,” she said. “You will never be able to become their true best friends.”

 

In general, I really enjoy my studying experience in Beida. The professors are great, the campus is beautiful, the studying materials (journals, books provided by the university) are mind-opening, and I also made a lot of Chinese friends. Just be prepared for a lot of ambitious geeks there 

[jobm]

@Toro, thank you very much for your very long post! I am so happy to find out that Beida has the same radical, critical, and open-minded ideology as my home university in my country. To be able to boldly discuss very controversial and various topics in a university is what I really thirst for because I think only this way we can have a significant contribution to human knowledge. It is really important to know how to question the beliefs we take for granted. Now, I really think PKU is the university which I want to go to in China, I just hope I could be admitted there *cross fingers*

 

Anyway, I just find this saddening: 

 

 

“No matter how much efforts you put, you will never be able to get close to the Chinese students as close as they are with each other,” she said. “You will never be able to become their true best friends.”

 

But, I also think, among the Chinese themselves, competition also exists. 

 

Anyways, may I also ask the admission process you had? How hard is it among foreign students? :/

[Angelina]

I found the experience of studying alongside Chinese students similar to the experience of having a Chinese boyfriend and meeting his family.

At first, everything is fine, you feel welcome, but then the family goes on doing things the way they have always done. If you don't follow the unwritten rules, you will not fit in.

The thing is, it is not like Chinese families or Chinese classmates don't like foreigners, they are just not used to having foreigners. Even if they genuinely like you and would be happy to see you join the class or the family, they don't know what to do to help you adjust.

It is also extremely important to be close to your 导师 and your 师兄、师姐、师妹, I told you about that before.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/47786-chinese-families/


Back on topic,

http://3g.xici.net/d223314108.htm?from=timeline&isappinstalled=0

1952年教育部拟定发布了“关于全国高等学校1952年的调整设置方案”，刻板地仿照苏联工业技校模式，对民国时期被迫留下来的高校进行了调整，准确的说，是肢解。
这次调整保留了少数文理科综合性大学，撤消综合大学中的二级学院，按行业归口建立单科性高校；政府接办改造了65所私立高校、取缔24所教会津贴的高校。当年名噪一时的“东方哈佛”圣约翰大学、燕京大学、震旦大学等名校，都未能幸免于难。比如清华、浙大等，都被削的只剩下工学院。


However

http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MjM5ODgyNTIxMg==&mid=1804822758&idx=1&sn=1355c3731ef20e352ebdba93eaf9e252&scene=2#wechat_redirect

http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzA5NTIyODgzOQ==&mid=401588605&idx=1&sn=612b09f2f92b29b247fa5bd94de03079&scene=2&srcid=0114proa4njzlbn5MhLRewkT&from=timeline&isappinstalled=0#wechat_redirect

[Toro]

@jobm it's not that difficult for international students, I heard. Beida is now in a mission to attract international students to learn there. But, the requirements are set quite high: for instance, my master's program requires an IELTS overall score of 7, with a minimum writing score of 6 (even top level universities in the UK or Australia such as UCL or ANU, require at least 6.5 in overall).

 

For the undergraduate programs, I heard that the admission test for international students (gaokao) is different -- I heard this from my undergraduate friend, and I don't know whether that means a different test, or different requirement threshold of Gaokao scores. Chinese students are required to obtain 600 scores on Gaokao to secure a place in Beida or Tsinghua. This reportedly is an insanely high score that might be achieved only by China's most genius and hard-working students; I have a Chinese friend now studying in BLCU who said that he once studied 14 hours a day for at least a year to prepare for his Gaokao test, yet he only got 500 (I like him, he's a smart guy and his English is very good). Nevertheless, our competition to secure places at the Beida or Tsinghua is not as intense as what is experienced by the Chinese students.

 

Which country are you from?

[jobm]

I am from the Philippines

Woah, I have also read that they require international students to pass HSK 6 with a minimum score of 210 to enter the Chinese-taught Master programs.

Do they also require foreigners to pass an entrance examination?

[BanZhiYun]

@jobm Are you going to apply for CGS or are you going for 自费? Also, are you going for 中文系 or 对外汉语学院? They both have Master programs. 

[BanZhiYun]

Hi. I am finally done with my Freshman year.

So basically this is the study plan for foreigners that are studying 中文系 @ PKU. We can select to not follow it and go with the Chinese students 培养方案 if we want to, but it's a little bit different. So far, I've had 《高级口语》（上，下）、《阅读与写作》（1, 2）、中国古代史（上，下）、《现代汉语》（上）、《古文选读》for my compulsory courses. Then I had a few for the electives. 通选课 is basically General Knowledge or whatever it's called, they have about 400 classes from all departments, and I think this is just plain stupid, if I had to be honest. No one takes them as seriously, and some teachers still give terrible marks. (Hi, I am a humanities student, am I supposed to be an expert @ A类 classes, such as 演示物理、地震概论 etc.) Anyway, if you guys have any questions, feel free to ask!

[Angelina]

I am interested in 《阅读与写作》

 

How did it go?

[BanZhiYun]

It was the worst class among the other classes. We had it twice a week for 2 hours, the first time the teacher was "teaching" a different type of 文体 (that my "foreign" classmates have already studied in chinese HS), and then we had to write next class. The following week, she'd return our "essays" and she'd pick some student's sentences and make a PPT, then discuss them with us etc. The only useful thing that I learnt in this class (after I basically 勉强 the teacher to do it, god, I hated that goddamn teacher. She was totally 西化. Worst type of Chinese people I've ever seen.) was the 成语 have a grammatical structure (主谓，述宾，述补 etc. etc, the same gramatical structure as a simple sentence) and according to that, we can define how to use them correctly in a sentence. E.g. 祸不单行 is a 主谓结构, so it's a 谓词性短语, therefore in a sentence it can be anything, but 主语 or 宾语. E.g. 我最近总是碰晦气，再说祸不单行，这段日子简直太难熬了. etc.

I liked my 口语 class much more than 《阅读与写作》. But these 2 classes were my least favorite, The teachers were non-stop “你们要达到中国人的表达水平" which is an absolute 伪命题, and 100% bullshit for real foreigners. But at the same time, 99% of my foreign classmates were born and raised in China, so maybe they can achieve it.

[Angelina]

The teachers were non-stop “你们要达到中国人的表达水平"

 

 

This is fine, too strict is better than too lenient.

 

The problem is that they did not manage to teach you how to 达到. 

 

Thanks for sharing. 

[BanZhiYun]

It's basically 牢牢地掌握句式 from my experience. Can't wait for 现代汉语（下）。<3 I am so scared of 古代汉语 and 古代文学 though, I just got the textbooks, and it's just lol.

[Angelina]

How are you going to write your papers if the 《阅读与写作》course did not go too well? 

 

Imagine you actually understand《古代文学》, you can follow the course, read, however, when you are supposed to write a paper you end up writing like a primary school kid. 

 

Pay attention to this! 

[BanZhiYun]

I know, that's my biggest issue so far. Papers aren't that bad. But 闭卷考试, when there is  简答题？ That's a different story. I am always so, so, so nervous.