JHU SAIS Nanjing Center

enfenteterrible
Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:25:49 +0000

One of this program’s strength was the job connection (lousy economy now), so much for that, but I grew to appreciate what I learned over time. Nanjing is not a large city, but it’s livable, though crowded (whereas I consider a lot of urban-but-not-metropolitan China a bit unlivable) I realize that if you’re prepared to do more work you can have mostly good classes, otherwise, like me, you might only like, maybe, 2-3.

A strength of the program is, of course, that you’re in China with Chinese classmates. For me this was diluted with the good times to be had with my American classmates, seems it takes discipline to get the full experience. It’s still a really unique place, but outside of class you have to make your own ‘China’ time.

You probably won’t get any better teaching elsewhere in China, our teachers did have lots of discussions, but the material is tough. I should say, Hua Tao did rock our worlds.
Most other profs: very cool sometimes, but not worth it. If you don’t know whether you enjoy reading Chinese academic works or not, really think about it. If you never really ‘get’ it, you might want to just continue studying China in English.

I’d say: save your money. On that point, maybe I should have said ‘Don’t do the Master’s program’ (Unless you know what you want to study, etc. Same sort of goes for the certificate) People who are already set on the Center already know, they don’t need to read this.