Why Do so Many Chinese Students Want to Study at Universities in the U.S?
In the last 2 years, China was the top country sending students to the U.S. Through the picture, we can know that the Chinese had 304,040 students in United Stated for studying in 2014/2015, and it increases by 20,000 students in one year. Those dates illustrates the U.S universities have some advantages.
There are four differences between Chinese universities and U.S universities. The difference could tell the people why do so Chinese student want to come to the U.S to study.
The first difference is academic excellence. According to the ‘100 Best Universities in the world’, there are six universities in U.S in the top ten, which are Harvard University(1st), Stanford University(2nd), Massachusetts Institute of Technology(3rd), University of California at Berkeley(4th), Princeton University(6th), California Institute of Technology(7th), Columbia University(8th) and University of Chicago(9th). This illustrates that the United States has one of the finest systems of higher education in the world.
However, according to the U.S News global universities, the best Chinese University is Peking University which is the 53th. , and another is Tsinghua University which is the 57th. The two universities is the only two Chinese universities in the top one hundred universities in global universities. The rank of two Chinese universities are lower than the U.S universities. This also illustrates that the Chinese teaching quality is lower than the quality of U.S.
Second difference is flexibility. The executive director, Nora S. Khachetourians said: “There is some flexibility in undergraduate programs where you are able to find a wide variety of courses to choose from to meet the requirements for the academic degree you are studying. ”
In the U.S, although students their major are not Engineering, Business Administration, Communications and Computer Science, they still have chance to learn the knowledge from the other courses, and the students inthe U.S can choose their interesting courses.
However, Chinese students don’t have the ability to choose the courses, the Chinese universities help the students to choose their courses. There is an example about my friend.
My friend in Chinese university tells me that his major is computer science, and philosophy which he has failed twice is chosen by his university. But he have no way to choose another courses to replace the philosophy. He complained to me that: “Why I must learn the Marxism? Using the Marxism to write a code on program?”
Third difference is transfer, in U.S, people can transfer from a university to another university. But the transfer system will not appear.
In the U.S, when the students finish the 2 year college, they can transfer to the 4 year university continue to study.
In China, there is a system of rank about Chinese universities:
Level 1: first kind bachelor = U.S. Ivy league
Level 2: second kind bachelor = the normal university in the U.S
Level 3: specialty university = 2 year college
Level 1 > Level 2 > Level 3
The student in level 3 universities cannot transfer to the other level universities.
The last difference is finding a job when the student graduate from the 4-year university. The most students in U.S can find a job quickly after their graduation. However, in China, besides the students in the level 1 universities can find a job immediately after they finish the universities, the students who in other two levels cannot find a job, because they study at level 2 or level 3 universities.
