College Life

Because right now all of you are in college I wanted to tell you a little bit about the differences between college in the United States and college in China. I might add more to my list later about this.

1. Strict schedule vs. free time
After talking to students here it seems that there is not a lot of free time for college students. This is quite the opposite for western students. We still have to spend a lot of time studying but when we do this studying is really up to us. The only times we have to be anywhere really is when we have class. We decide the rest of our schedule. A lot of the differences between college in China and college in western countries stems from how we spend our time.

2. Choosing classes
I chose all of my classes. Every semester I decided what classes I would take and I could choose from the classes available. At my university, and at many universities, there are two types of classes: Monday/Wednesday/Friday classes and Tuesday/Thursday classes. This means that I would take a class at 8:00-8:50AM on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I had a couple of semesters where I went to school just three days a week. One semester I had classes only on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

3. Education Methods
It seems to me that college has a different aim in the west. In China it seems that you have strict schedules and that you focus on exams. While it is true that exams are important in classes in the west, we also write a lot of papers. Instead of focusing on memorizing, we focus on learning concepts and analyzing information. Every major is different. In my major, I did not take a single exam for the last two years of my college. I did, however, write many papers. One semester I wrote 164 pages. So even though I had more free time than you, I spent a lot of that free time researching and writing.

4. The College Experience
In addition to the “education” side of college, there is another side of college in western cultures. I call it “The College Experience”. Many students get involved in clubs. At more traditional schools there are fraternities and sororities. At my school there were political clubs, environmental clubs, ethnic clubs, religious clubs, and many others. There are always activities going on at campus such as focus weeks and fun activities. Also, college sports is a huge part of the college experience.