Chinese Universities

Elizabeth (Liz)

Hey all!

One of the big things I was curious about before coming to China was the University system. I knew what was the college process which as some of you may know in China they take the Gao Kao which determines your major and which university you can get into. But everything that came after that was a mystery. Luckily for us, my host parents are both professors at Zhejiang University of Technology, which is the number two university in Zhejiang Province, and my host mom offered to show us around.

Right off the bat the main thing I notice is how modern the buildings are, and that's due to the fact that most of the universities were built in the last century. So you won't see any stone towers or ancient fountains. In fact this university was built in the 80s so everything was pretty much just red brick and glass. The second thing I noticed was how big they were. The campus' here are huge and they need to be!! In America university sizes can differ but here almost all of them in China have at least 20,000 students. To put that into perspective, the college I am attending next year, Lehigh University, has 6,000 students. 

The last and more important thing I observed was how little campus activities there were. So part of the reason I picked my school was how it always felt like there was a frisbee game or a charity run or something. But there was no signage of stuff like that or any hint of activity on the campus green. At first I thought like "No way they can't all be like this". But the my host mom took us to Zhejiang University and pretty much everything was the same. It made me appreciate the university I picked and how fortunate I am, just in general.

Thanks for reading!