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Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies (IUP) at Tsinghua


wnmprk

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I was wondering if anyone else was admitted into IUP at Tsinghua for this upcoming academic year (or summer). I thought it would be nice if we could all share information and answer each others' questions through this forum. I feel like IUP hasn't sent out much information about the program. I did email the program rep at UC Berkeley and got responses but I still have A LOT of questions. IUP doesn't seem like a normal study abroad program where they send you huge packets of information through mail, or a step-by-step guide of some sort.....

Anyways, please feel free to respond if you've gone to IUP before or if you're planning to go this upcoming academic school year!

-Thanks

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On accommodation - assuming you're not going into dorms, look for information about apartments / apartment-hunting in Wudaokou and Haidian. These are the areas Tsinghua is in, and there are a ton of foreign students around here, so there's actually a fair bit of information, both on here and on other sites.

We have a few IUP graduates knocking about - if you post up specific questions you may get the answers you're looking for.

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YES! Housing.....I have no idea what I'm doing right now... I was going to do homestay and I emailed the person in charge. S/he told me that there are only 4 to 5 Tsinghua affiliated families that IUP trusts with homestay, so now I feel like I need to find an apartment which seems a little difficult (with my limited Chinese). Apparently, the single room dorms are really hard to get. Also, the IUP rep said more information about housing should be out by late June or early July so I'm trying to be patient till then.

Did you buy your plane ticket yet togi86? If so, what date did are you flying into China? I've yet to buy mine because I have no idea when to go. I would like to go a little earlier and maybe do some tourist-y things but I'm not sure if my Chinese is good enough to travel alone...

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I was planning on doing the homestay too. But I wanted to find out about past students' experiences first. If it ends up that I have to look for an apartment, from what I've read on this forum as well as the IUP google group forum, the best bet would be to arrive in Beijing first and then look for an apartment. There's an Accommodation Handbook that Ms Zhu has posted on the IUP google group forum that's pretty helpful - it includes a list of renting do/don'ts, phrases, role-plays, etc. Past/leaving IUP students will also post up a couple of ads on the IUP forum.

I haven't bought my plane ticket yet. I'm planning on getting into China around July to get a couple of lessons before IUP starts, but this will depend on family/work/study. Basically, I'm trying to cram as much Chinese as humanly possible into my brain before the end of the year. I haven't decided which city I'll be in before IUP starts, but I'll be in Beijing by 21 August at the latest. As for travelling in China, I'd assume that English is pretty common in major cities like Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai, or even touristy places like Macau. I think they'd be okay for travelling alone too. But for regional areas, I don't really know. Maybe you could post on the travelling section of the forum to see what the other forum members think?

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  • 6 months later...

I would encourage you to get there early to do some touristy things if that's an option. Don't worry about your Chinese level. My Chinese was pretty bad when I moved to Taipei, but I got around just fine and did some fun stuff the first few weeks I was here. You won't have a lot of time for that once your program starts, assuming IUP is anything like ICLP (it's supposed to be), so take advantage of the opportunity. You'll probably run into some situations where your language ability gets in the way, but that's good for you. You just need to be willing to laugh your mistakes off.

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  • 6 months later...
and helping me set up a post-IUP independent study syllabus

I'd be interested in hearing about this. At this point I couldn't imagine it being anything besides "read a lot, both in your field and in general, watch a bunch of movies, attend lectures, talk to a lot of people, etc." In fact, Tadoku starts tomorrow, what better time than the present to start reading as much as you can?

It's my impression that IUP has had a teacher retention problem for several years now. Contrast that with (the much less expensive at ~$12,000 for three quarters) ICLP, where some of the teachers have been there for decades (and some of them wrote much of the material that the IUP stuff was based on). Not that any of that makes ICLP any better than IUP. My impression is that they're about the same, and that students at both schools end up speaking in an overly formal, bookish manner because that's all they've been exposed to due to a lack of free time. So get out there and pay attention to how people really speak, and modify accordingly!

"Pretentious" is precisely the word, but at least you know! Most ICLP students I've known don't see it, but it comes across when they speak in strings of 成語 they learned from 思想與社會. :)

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  • 11 months later...

For people who have attended IUP previously or are thinking about attending IUP, did you compare IUP with Tsinghua's own Chinese language program? What are the pros and cons? Is the added value of intensity, small and flexible course level, and network worth the relatively much higher tuition?

 

While attending IUP, are students allowed to audit courses at Tsinghua or Beida? In Chinese, of course.

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  • 9 months later...

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