Glchinese Blog

In China the college experience for Chinese is quite different when compared to their western counterparts. The ideas of bing drinking, good partying and good times have no place within the Chinese concept of higher education. They didn’t struggle through the college exams, exert themselves with extra classes, and study into the early hours just to blow it all away with drink and games once entering college. This concept of study, study, study is usually seen as extreme within western nations whom have more of a tendency to balance the ideas of study hard and “play hard.” When you come to study in China however, you will notice that a vast majority of Chinese students are simply relentless within their learning not only because of self-desires but because of family and social pressure. 

Due to these pressures on Chinese students, as well as the demands from their country, the Chinese generally not only have different study habits but also usually choose to study subjects different than their western peers.  

 

 Currently the most popular degree subject in China is engineering. China graduates on average up to 600,000 engineering students a year, compared to 60,000 in the USA. For a country in the middle of a vast and unprecedented development, this appetite for engineering is looked upon greatly. However if you look deeper into the Chinese education system, this desire to learn fields such as engineering comes across not by coincidence. Chinese and western ways of learning are different in that the Chinese focus on teaching methods that suit science and technology better, however overlook such things as arts and humanities.  

 

India on the other hand is a country with similarities in population size and development rate however tend to further focus on different subjects. Both countries India and China have since the 40’s stressed education allowing for country growth. In fact, Eastern education since this time has primarily focused on developing and building countries. The difference is however, the Indian population has responded to government calls for the development of its nation by focusing on fields such as medicine and computer science. And as while the Chinese surge ahead with construction and infrastructure, Indian on the other hand have already adopted protocols such as Indian Action Plan which ensured that every school, college, university and hospital was connected to the internet by 2003, thus guaranteeing its Asian dominance in areas such as computer science.

 

In Japan, student study habits further differ. In a country so business driven Japanese students tend to chose areas such as social sciences, accounting, business, and law. Statistically nearly 40% of students graduate with a degree in social science, this is compared to just 17% who graduate as engineers. The dramatic difference when compared to China can be understandable when one adds into count that Japan is at a much later stage of development thus engineers are in a less demand when compared to lawyers, accountants, salary men.

 

As you come to study in China it is interesting to compare the differences of Asian countries not only in their outlook toward educations, but also their differences in culture, food, music, traditions etc. When you do come to study in China many students find the chance to use China as a “steeping stone” and take the opportunity visiting and travelling around all of Asia, and it is this travelling that will further your education and insight.