I have to mention that lots of people like me after finishing three years of the degree of bachelor then studying the fourth year in Britain. So far the big problem which I face is the “fault” of my knowledge in the long period when I attend the class. The “fault” means the knowledge I possessed have no connection with what our teachers teach, or in some aspects even no relevance. So it is hard for me to comprehend and it is time consuming to digest. The reason is that the discrepancy between the knowledge taught in China and abroad. So, if you are not starting from the first year here, there will be a serious problem of adaptation. I also encounter this problem. At first when I took classes, I was not acquainted to the language environment and I could not understand what was taught in class, so I lagged behind in study. And it took time to catch up after class. So I think, if possible, it is easier to accustom to the learning environment if one could come to Britain as freshmen or sophomore.

What amazes me is how the teachers of Coventry University design the themes for practice. This is an effective way to train specialists. They even would not let go any opportunity to creative a miracle for those who is not good at study. In my class, the students are from different background and their education levels are not quite the same. But the teachers here would not judge or require everyone with the same average. Every course work must be finished on a certain base. The process of finishing the course work is to fill in the gap between where you are and the base. The teachers will give you a guide to finish your task, clearly guiding you to think step by step, to practice and to improve. We could say that, even you have no knowledge about the task, if you follow the guide line, you could basically understand the procedure. Of course, if you don’t like to follow the guide, you could do it your own way and improve it. In comparison, the homework in China is of the same module: the teacher gives you a task and you do it all by yourself. It might be easy for the genius but not so friendly to those not good at study.

In addition, when talking about the way of education, it is always compulsory in China instead of inspiration. The teachers would not teacher you clearly and wholly all the relative knowledge. But it does not mean that the knowledge they don’t teach is not important and you don’t need to grasp, for he expects you to excavate and to think. But back in China, the teachers will take great pains to reiterate the important points. No one would bother to study other points. Maybe this is the difference of active learning and passive learning. The students take part in active learning will choose their future career by interest and more willing to research and more likely to achieve goals. In my opinion, this might in one aspect explain why the foreigners pocket the Nobel price while the kids in China study harder and more abstruse than those abroad.

Without doubt, Chinese traditional education has its advantage. What I say as above, just hope our department of education imitate the theory of “Na Lai“ ( take and keep) of Mr Xun Lu. Learn from others’ strong points to offset ones’ own weakness.

“It is utmost important for self-aware independence” 

After my enrolment I became a student of Coventry. But I discovered that there was not any opening ceremony for the first day. Students just took their timetable and went to classes. In fact this ‘silent’ school open reflected that study here need the ability of voluntary and independence. And in the study I became more and more aware of the importance of these two words.

The education here is advance. Network is crucial. In Coventry University, every student must register an account on the Coventry website when enrols. There is one “blackboard” in the website which is of great importance to you study. For all the information about your class including the curriculum introduction, homework arrangement, discussion, direction and hand in, even all the class notification are published on this blackboard. So you have to check this blackboard system everyday to make sure you don’t miss any assignment or notification. At first I didn’t pay much attention to it for it was not practiced in China. I thought the teachers would tell us what we should do and when to hand in the assignments. I idled around while thinking there was no assignments. But at last, after I found out the assignments, I was in a dreadful rush.

In addition, there are some highly independent courses. For example, I take a course named 300AD－Personal Development Portfolio. There is no classroom tutorial for this course. A handbook is given to you at the start of every term, the assignments, the direction and the hand-in timetable are all written in it. And in this process, all have to be finished by oneself. For I was accustomed to the remind of teachers, I frequently forgot the existence of this course and missed the deadline for handing in the assignments. Additionally, there was one assignment I need to finish online which was to write an article every week. These things are very easy to neglect.

The life abroad is free, but we often forget how to reasonably arrange our time for study because of the freedom. So in the first beginning, we should make a detail study plan and study goals and force ourselves to execute in order to study willingly and independently, so as not to rush ourselves at the end.

Dr. ZONG, the Associate Dean of the Intenational College from Nanjing Univeristy of Science and Technology whom came here for doing academic communication last week had high expectation on the exchange program between Nanjing University of Science and Technology and Coventry University.

Me: How long has Nanjing University of Science and Technology been communicating with Coventry University?

Dr Zong: From 1994 till now.

Me: What do you think is the biggest change of the exchange program from 1994 till now?

Dr Zong: I think students have more choices of choosing the universities and specialities now.

Me: What is the most significant thing for doing the exchange program?

Dr Zone: Students can broaden their minds by studying abroad, besides, it can make ths students achieve their of studying oversea.

Me: Nowadays, the news of abroad study is everywhere. Do you think study abroad is more valuable than study in China?

Dr Zong: It depends on different situation. Learning something more advanced and more international outside will be helpful for the future life of Chinese students. However, the expensive tuition fee is a big problem that we can not ignore.

The bar chart above shows the biggest problem for international students studying at Coventry University. The date was taken from a questionnaire that 30 Chinese students completed.

The bar chart above shows the biggest problem for international students studying at Coventry University. The date was taken from a questionnaire that 30 Chinese students completed. Each of them could chose between two options and we can see here that most of the students thought language was their biggest problem. On top of this 16 feel they cannot get used to the educational system, 10 think the module’s content is different here compared to China and three believe there is much external pressure. One cannot get used to the culture in the UK. 

 I can see from all the surveys and interviews that Chinese students are facing a lot of learning and life difficulties. Among them, language seems to be the greatest enemy to a successful student life here. Although many Chinese students have come here for language courses or did very well in English before coming here, most of them still need time to adapt to using everyday English. 
One said: “When I was in China, I have did quite well in English and grammar, but now I cannot open my mouth after coming here. I know what I want to say but I can’t express it in English.”
Many students here say the education system is totally different to that in China, for example we do not do coursework in our home country.

In China, the teacher always tells us what to do and how to do it. In the UK the teachers want us to do so in accordance with our own ideas. A girl who has studied at Coventry University for two years said: “I realized there is a big difference between the module’s setting and content in China to that in the UK. This causes more trouble for the students who just come here with a listening problem in English. We not only need to practice our English, but we also need to read plenty of material to catch up with the process of the module.”

Although the majority of Chinese students studying abroad come across many difficulties, all the students I interviewed are enjoying their studies. Most of them think that studying here brings them a lot of valuable knowledge and experience. At the same time they feel that this is a process of training themselves. For example one postgraduate student said: “I have gained a lot of professional knowledge here as well as making myself more independent.”

Wu Wen is studying for the final year of Business Administration at Coventry University. He expresses that language barrier troubles him when he first came to UK. Now he has his English improved and he enjoys communicating with foreign students in English.

Lots of people choose to study overseas. Frankly speaking, if you have these conditions, the advantage of studying overseas is that it is a good chance for you to broaden you eye side and enlarge your knowledge. But, it is the biggest decision for people even for their family. Before you plan to go overseas, Should we consider carefully the aim of it? What achievement you hope to attain? What is the point of studying overseas?

The second, the information system of contemporary society is well-developed. You can get everything of the developed country through media, internet. You can totally image how to live in overseas. But there is absolute difference between your imagination and actually living in overseas. Breathing fresh air, knowing the concern of humanities, this is the experience you can’t imitate and understand. Living and studying overseas will extremely broaden you eye side, learn through multi-cultural experience, temper your abilities to consider independently,  cultivate attitude to face success and failure calmly, it will be helpful for you understand humanities and societies with comprehensive vision, and pay more attention and love to our motherland.

The third, the diversities of specialities when studying in overseas. There are two meanings, firstly, the foreign university establish wide-range specialties. Many specialties are blank in China. Some equal specialties in China is not admitted in overseas, especially including clinical medicine and law. If you want to execute your career, you must choose to attain the degree of foreign country. The second, when you want to get the degree of master, you need to have some background in your bachelor, but it is flexible when you study master in overseas. You don’t need to pass the examination, it is convenient to exchange you subject. For example, the graduate in English may allow apply for accountancy, pedagogy, media, and IT, it is nearly impossible in China.

The fourth, there are remarkable difference of the studying efficiency between foreign and domestic universities. The pattern of education, viewpoint, and facilities is more advanced. The other hand is time, as we know, the standard of time for attaining bachelor is 4 years and master is 3 years. But it just need 3 years to achieve the degree of  bachelor and 1 year to achieve the degree of master in Australia, United Kingdom of England, New Zealand, Singapore etc. It reduces the opportunity cost of studying overseas.Because you can start your career after finishing your master 3 years earlier than comtempory.

At last, many people who study overseas just want to change the current circumstance. Some kind of people who have a pretty good job in China, but they desire to overstep their develop their career. In spite of good income, they recognize that they need to improve themselves to keep lasting competition abilities under high competition pressure. Or they have achieved the certain career position, and find some difficulties to keep going up, it is good time for them to choose study overseas. Some people want to change their current situation, they don’t satisfy their job, and hope to get a relevant foreign degree via studying overseas. It is possible for them to change to another career which they are interested.

The above is my point for people choose to study overseas. All in all, studying overseas is the big issue of your life. People need spend plenty of energy and finance. Wish those who want to study overseas catch this opportunity, improve him/her in all abilities, not just get a piece of paper of degree.

A junior student at the university said: “I like this conversation so much. I can talk with my senior school fellows and ask them something I want to know about studying in Britain and that helps me to prepare. It really builds up my confidence towards studying abroad.”

Mengmi, whom is studying BA International Journalism in Hong Kong Baptist University as an exchange student from Guangdong University of Foreign study, accepted by interview.

Me: Hongkong special Adminstrative Region is an international bigalopolis, its educational system would likely close to universities of western countries. Could you please briefly particularize something which you think is the most different of Journalism study between Guangzhou and Hongkong?

Mengmi: I think the way Hong Kong’s universities do combines both western mode and Chinese traditional mode. Student here need to work creatively all by themselves instead of just listening to the lecturers, like what the western mode does. But they also need to study hard, sometimes even simply remember the handouts given by lecturers.

As a journalism student, I found that the most different thing of study between Hong Kong and mainland China is that students in Hong Kong are pushed to work as real journalists to compete with journalists in real media and big TV stations. We can see how hard it is for students, who always lack first-hand sources, to compete with real journalists. So that makes students to think creatively. Since we cannot do spot reporting, we need to think up special angles to report things that has not been covered by real media. But in Guangzhou, student are more likely only to do campus reporting.

Me: How do you think about of being a exchange student?  As an exchange student, what do you think is of benefit to you?

Mengmi: I think being an exchange student is an excellent experience for a student. College is not a place to give you knowledge, but a place to teach you how to learn. We can never say that one educational system is better than another, so to experience different college educational mode will help student to find a better study method. More over, let’s stop talking about academic things; it’s a great journey for a student to spend a year of a half to live in a different city to experience different culture.

Wen Hao is a final year student at Coventry University. He maintained that language was his biggest problem of his study; meanwhile, he felt big pressure on doing the assignment and taking exam, his parents had high expectation for his future and affording expensive tuition fee. However, he thought studying here was a hard-won and valuable experience for him and he enjoyed it.

In Guangzhou many universities have set up a relationship with foreign universities and a large number of students take part in exchange programmes.  A spokesperson for the university said:  “We are now making an effort to help them to do the preparation for studying abroad and the service we offer the students is totally free.”