Graduate Programs

[xingxiang]

anyone know of any good Master Degree programs for Mandarin (preferably in China)??

- Chris

[chineseflagship]

Why not considering our Chinese flagship program.

http://chineseflagship.osu.edu/

[Tsunku]

Just out of curiosity, what makes you want to do a Master's in China? Language study can be done without getting a Master's, and a graduate degree from a school in this country, unless it is one of the very top schools (and even then ...), isn't going to hold a whole lot of weight abroad.

I had toyed with the idea myself, but once I thought seriously about it, realized it would probably be a waste.

Sorry I can't recommend anything, and hope you don't take my comments the wrong way. Seriously just wondering if there is another side of it I hadn't considered.

[bill]

Tsunku

I've been wondering about the possibility of doing a masters in Chinese here too - I'm planning on staying in China permanently and if possible would like to study formally.

My understanding is that having graduated with a bachellors degree in the UK or the US, many students do still not have a particularly high level of Chinese - e.g. reading hongloumeng would be difficult or impossible. A Chinese graduate of a Chinese degree would find this and far older Chinese writings relatively easy. I would therefore imagine that a masters in China, even at a relatively poor university, would deal at a level that most universities at the UK couldn't reach.

An example of this is that my Chinese teacher had the option of doing a phd in the UK (SOAS, I think) but in his view a foreign phd would be worthless in China.

I suspect a Chinese studies degree would be better in the west and perhaps the studying and teaching methods would be better too. In terms of getting academic jobs in the West, a western degree might be better. However, purely in terms of getting a better understanding of Mandarin and Chinese literature, a masters in China might be better.

I'm speaking from a position of considerable ignorance - - please let me know your thoughts.

[Meng Lelan]

Bill,

You are right, Chinese language study in the US is really terrible - I took four years of Chinese at the University of Illinois (supposedly a good program) and the Chinese language instruction was of such poor quality that after graduation I had to spend several years re-teaching myself the material, and not only that, teaching myself the basics that the UI never taught (pinyin and radicals). If I were to do a degree program in Chinese language and literature, I would have gone to China.