<p>hello, i am in a big dilemma. </p>
<p>i got into tsinghua study abroad program.</p>
<p>however, i know these chinese students are top notch.<br>
My professor at purdue is the head of Tsinghua’s Industrial Engineering department. Because of this, It was not hard to get accepted at all. (I have just a 3.0 at Purdue)
He said to me, a top student here is a bottom student there.</p>
<p>I would like to know what u guys know about students who go to Tsinghua and the academic rigors</p>
<p>Tsinghua afaik is considered the MIT of China. That can be a bit misleading since admissions standards and the chances for acceptance into Tsinghua is above and beyond what most would go through here in the states (elite colleges included). Keep in mind that there are hundreds of thousands of kids in China all of whom are vying for a spot.<br>
I hate to sound redundant but you might want to make the best of this situation.</p>
<p>I have a side question for you. I’m planning on applying to Purdue West Lafayette as a business major. How do you like it? How’s the atmosphere like?</p>
<p>I dont know how difficult Qinghua (thats how you spell the Chinese way). However if it is put in a ranking I dont think it will be even comparable to Purdue. Not that it is a bad school, but that generally Chinese schools have alot less resources etc. The professors will undoubtedly be top notch and the students as well. Everyone will be brilliant but only some will work very hard. In China it is extremely hard to get into college. When you get in you can pretty much cruise through it.</p>
<p>so you’re saying the difficulty is not that great?</p>
<p>my professor at purdue, head of Industrial engineernig at Tsinghua said if i am a B student here i will be a D student at Tsinghua.</p>
<p>BTW RATM, i would highly not recommend Purdue. Business here is a joke, anyone with half a brain can get a 3.5+ in my opinion. As for the social life here, i’m not having a good time ( I’m from california ) If you ask me, the quality of students at Purdue is quite bad. I’m constantly around people who are not motivated, and this may rub off on you.</p>
<p>lixuelai, i have a hard time figuring out your logic. </p>
<p>Obviously the quality of students aT Tsinghua is very good. Most are national scholars I hear. That, combined with a very good work ethic, wouldn’t that make the difficulty of the classes ridiculous for an average purdue student like me? I dont understand how It can not be hard there for a guy like me.</p>
<p>Logic is simple lol, if a brilliant student does no work, s/he will be just like any D student. Now im not saying that Tsinghua is ez, its not, but i doubt you with die there if you put in some effort.</p>
<p>I heard that Study abroad students are not graded in the same way as the Chinese students there. IS this true?</p>
<p>I have no idea about that. But tsinghua is by no means easy and the students, especially those in engineering, are truly brilliant. You are talking about the top 0.1% of Chinese students here and they can hold their own in any top university in the states. More than one American has complained about Chinese students slaughtering the curve in MIT/Stanford (you get the idea). You definitely will not die, but you will most probably be below average. I’m just a little indignant that people have such low expectations of the top university in China.</p>
<p>is there anyone else besides myself that thinks an average, maybe slightly below average student like myself would get SLAUGHTERED at Tsinghua?</p>
<p>Relax, I don’t think you will be slaughtered.</p>
<p>You will be a favorite among the local students as you already speak some Mandarin. They will want to hang around you to practise speaking English. You can teach them English and help review their term papers. In return, they can help you with your engineering homeworks. Everybody wins. You will have a great time in Beijing.</p>
<p>i hear normal tsinghua students take 24-28 credits a semester. often more.</p>
<p>anyone know if this is true?</p>
<p>i plan on taking 12…</p>
<p>bump bumppp</p>
<p>I do, actually (think that you’ll be slaughtered there).</p>
<p>In our country,Tsinghua U and Peking U are in the same positions just as MIT and Harvard do in US. All of the students there are the smartest and most diligent guys in their Provinces,so competition is extremely intended. </p>
<p>Whether or not you will be the top student there in the future,you are lucky. i mean ,you have the oppotunity to live and study with Chinese future aristocracies,which is the dream of millions of Chinese students in their whole lives (including me). :-)</p>
<p>BTW, Purdue has the largest number of Chinese students in US, and most of them are graduate students who finish their BS in best universities in China,such as Tsinghua ,Peking ,ZJU,etc. Maybe you will get more practicle and useful news from them.</p>
<p>Just a question:whether it is easy to get A in Purdue as an undergraduate junior in EE.</p>
<p>and one more thing to tell you, do not be afraid of your language problem.Chinese ppl are very friendly. i do strongly agree with GoBlue81’s idea. there is no doubt that you will be super star there just bcs your native language is English.</p>
<p>I was before, a student of Tsinghua University. Then I changed my mind to receive a liberal education which could be achieved in the states. Tsinghua is a great school, and it’s industrial engineering department is wonderful (I have several friends there). The west campus scenery stands in par with some of the most beautiful US colleges. One drawback: there are too many visitors everyday taking photos in front of the second college gate and around the green.
If you are an engineering person, it will be a good choice.</p>
<p>dtshen, I can give you some suggestions of the university life in China since I have experience college life in two very different systems for enough long time.</p>
<p>I’m now a freshman in Dartmouth College. The challenge I face here is far rigorous than I can imagine in any Chinese university. I’m kept busy through the quarter, and rarely do I have time for sluggishness. I was a computer science major in Tsinghua, and I wanted to get something totally different in Dartmouth, so I immersed myself in humanities and writing for the first term. Of the three courses I took, I only got one A, the other two just average. Considering that I was competing with those brilliant domestic students who either shoot 800 in verbal or an 5 in AP English, I will relish the achievement I get in challenging myself. Studying abroad will be an invaluable experience, especially in a top notch college of another country. Your fear of becoming a D student poses a challenge to you. But take my advice, bravely embrace the challenges when you are young, or you might never retrieve the same courage after your graduation. As long as you work hard, you will be fine with your study, I assure you. Brilliance doesn’t have so much to do with the final grades in Tsinghua. It’s the dilligence that works.
As in every college, there are lazy ones and never-stop-working ones in Chinese universities. There were several students in my department who were addicted to computer games and finally failed to keep an academic quaification so they had to withdraw. The courses aims at depth, not breadth, so you will have a hard time comprehending those basic theories and principals yourself. The progress will not be so incredibly fast as you imagine, but a devotion to study is a must to ensure your keeping pace with your work. Unlike examinations in Chiese high schools that involve a lot of problem-solving tricks and techniques, in colleges they tend to test your knowledge of the basic material. As far as you “understand” the textbook, you will get most of the points. The reason why many students get a bad score is that they play too much during certain period and are never able to compensate for that. So just don’t worry if you are a good student here.</p>
<p>I don’t think you can take 12 credits a semester as the minumum requirement for courses in compulsory categories (those such as major courses or pre-requisites like calculus, circuits, physics, etc) is 13 credits. That can usually be satisfied by taking 2 major courses(which are REQUIRED to be taken by all students of the department) and 3 major electives(courses offered by the department as partial major requirement, taken by 1/3 to 1/2 of the student body) and one course in politics. In a typical semester there are 3 major courses, which can count up to about 8-10 credits. I once took 3 major courses, 3 major electives, 1 politics, 1 foreign language, 2 other electives, 1 P.E. for a single semester, but I still find it’s not so demanding as the three courses I was taking for the first quarter in Dartmouth.</p>
<p>Classes are usually big, ranging from 100-200 depending on the size of the department or major. I would usually fall asleep in big classes, but not every person does. Try to get a seat in the front rows so you will get more focus on what the teacher says. In evenings you will have plenty to do. There are lot of shops around, but since the campus are so huge and the dorms are far from either gate, you will take some minutes riding a bicycle to get to entertainment spots. We frequented a chicken-wing restaurant (every one in Tsinghua knows that!) of the west gate after mid-night. That was a good memory for me, who was now living in the middle of nowhere.</p>
<p>
Business everywhere is a joke. Study Economics.</p>
<p>bump bump bump… can anyone verify that foreigners are not treated the same way ( graded ) as Chinese students? How do we go about getting this special treatment? lol… Aren’t classes big? </p>
<p>ALso, how many units do most kids at Tsinghua take ? i hear 24-28 often more</p>