What do you think about China's universities?

你觉得中国的大学怎么样？

以下是Quora网友的评论：

Jiajun Yang

Some Chinese universities are good but most are bad. Many students just live in campus and learn by themself, because they can’t learn much from classes. And a lot of students play rather than study in their school time because teachers are not strict with them. School administrators,teachers and students all need to fight for change and make such situation better.

中国有一些大学很不错，但大多数都不咋地。很多学生只是住在校园里自学，因为他们在课堂上学不到东西。因为老师不严格，所以很多学生在学校里光顾着玩，一点不学习。学校领导、老师和学生都需要努力改变现状。

Wing Zhang

I don’t know the current situation of the education of Chinese universities , since I graduated and left there more than ten years. ( My God, I showed my age.)

But during my university time, I have to say the Chinese universities are not much good. ( As I never studied abroad, I don’t what about other countries’.)

我不知道中国大学教育现状如何了，因为我已经毕业十多年了(天啊，我自爆年龄了)。

但我得说，我读大学的时候，中国的大学很一般(我没有出国留学过，所以不知道其他国家的大学是什么情况)。

There were many classes actually, and we had to pass many subjects. But the university teachers were not strict, even you can say they were irresponsible. They just came and gave the class then left, never care about how many students attended how the students listened and learned. Even some students were slee and chatting, they could be blind and deaf.

我们会有很多课，必须通过很多学科的考试。但是大学老师并不严格，甚至可以说他们没有什么责任心。他们只是来上上课，下课就走，从不关心有多少学生出勤了，学生们听课、学习效果如何。有些学生上课睡觉、聊天，他们也装聋作哑。

Talking the university teachers, I like to say something about the middle school teachers. That’s totally different. The middle school teachers are very very strict and responsible. Because the main purpose of middle school is to pass the Chinese national exam and to get a high score, the higher , the better university you can enter. And the middle school teachers’ education quality , fame and bonus all are based on the students’ performance on the national exam. So, the middle school teachers are really responsible and care about their students.

谈到了大学老师，我想说说中学老师。他们完全不同。中学老师非常非常严格负责。因为中学教育的主要目的是让学生通过国家考试，获得高分，分数越高，学生就能进入越好的大学。而中学教师的教学质量、名气和奖金都决定于学生们在国家考试中的表现。所以，中学老师真的很负责任，也很关心他们的学生。

But I have to say, anyway, the education of Chinese universities gives Chinese youths the chances to learn, especially those of from the poor family back ground. Because chinese really launch many good policies to Chinese students. There are so many universities to ensure most of Chinese youths have chances to take a high education. And for the poor students, government gives free-interest loan.

但我不得不说，不管则么说，中国的大学教育给了中国年轻人一个学习的机会，尤其是那些出身贫困家庭的年轻人。因为中国为中国学生推出了很多好的政策。国家建设了这么多的大学，让大多数中国年轻人有机会接受高等教育。对于贫困学生，正符还会提供无息贷款。

And most of universities are highly facilitated with, library, laboratory, multi-media classes. And the environment is always very beautiful.

Actually you can learn there and enjoy your lives, but the students must be strict to themselves.

另外，大多数大学设施都很齐备，有图书馆、实验室、多媒体课程。环境也都很漂亮。

学生可以在大学里好好学习，享受生活的，但也必须对自己严格要求。

Minna Hayashi

What are Chinese schools and universities like?

I used to study at a foreign study school. Most of the students are girls, and we have a lot of exchange students or international students from different countries.

As a business English major student. I woke up in the morning, find a quite place in school. And practice English by listening to Voice of America

中国的学校和大学是怎么样的？

我以前在一所外国学校学习。大多数学生是女生，我们有很多来自不同国家的交换生或国际学生。

作为商务英语专业的学生。我早上醒来，在学校找到了一个安静的地方。听美国之音练习英语

And then go to classes. It depends on the class schedule, sometimes I don't have morning class. So I go to libarary. It is open until 10 or 12 at night. I don't remember it, because it is been a very long time.

然后去上课。要看课程安排，有时我没有早课。所以我去图书馆。图书馆营业到晚上10点或12点。我不记得了，因为已经过去很长时间了。

I usually ordered take out for me lunch. Good thing is we don't need to pay for the delivery fee. And I will stay at the dorm and sleep for half an hour. This is what our dorm looks like.

我午饭通常叫外卖。好的是我们不需要支付配送费。我会呆在宿舍里睡半个小时。这是我们宿舍的样子。

Sometimes I had dinner with friends at the cafeteria. We have more than 5 cafeterias. The prices are very reasonable. About 2 dollars for each meal.

有时我和朋友在自助餐厅吃饭。我们有5个以上的自助餐厅。价格合理。每顿饭大约2美元。

After dinner, I will have a walk and talk with my friends at the playground. People usually do exercises there. Also, we have a gym, but I’d never been there.

晚饭后，我会去操场上和朋友们散步和交谈。人们通常在那里锻炼。还有，我们学校有健身房，但我从未去过。

We have some very meaningful and interesting events.

The used stuffs exchange or sale

我们有一些有意义和有趣的活动。

二手物品市场

The clubs tabling

The international day

国际日活动

Zhipeng(Jason) Wang

Related

Are Chinese universities of lower quality? Currently there are more than 200,000 Chinese students in the US. Are Chinese universities perceived to be lower quality than Western ones? Do overseas graduates have an advantage in the Chinese job market?

中国的大学的教学质量不佳吗？目前在美中国留学生人数超过了20万。人们是不是认为中国大学的教学质量不如西方大学？海外毕业生在中国就业市场有优势吗？

As a Peking University alumnus who has been pursuing PhD in the US, I would like to say something about my understanding of Chinese Universities:

作为一名在美国攻读博士学位的北大校友，我想谈谈我对中国大学的理看法：

The quality of Chinese Universities is generally not good. Even Peking/Tsinghua U. I think the biggest problem is that Chinese people simply do not understand what a University should provide. University should be a place where students can freely pursue their dreams by getting quality education. When I was at Peking U, one thing really bothered me was that I could not take classes based on my own interests. I was a Chemistry major and I’d like to take a couple mathematics courses, I went to the registrar in math department and they immediately refused my request without any reason. They just simply thought that I was not in their department so I should not use their resource. I know the situation is getting much better now, but still it’s worse than in the US. Here I have no problem taking classes outside my department if they are useful, without going through terrible administrative processes.

中国大学的教学质量普遍不高，北大和清华也一样。我认为最大的问题是中国人根本不明白大学应该为学生提供什么服务。大学应该是一个让学生们接受优质教育、自由追求梦想的地方。我在北京大学求学时，有一件事真的让我很烦恼，那就是我不能选择自己感兴趣的课程。我是化学专业的学生，想学几门数学课程，我找数学系的注册主任申请，但他当场毫无理由地拒绝了我。他们认为我不是数学系的学生，所以我不能占用他们的资源。我知道现在好多了，但还是不如美国。在美国的大学，如果课程于我有益，我可以毫不费力地旁听本系以外的课程，也不用经过恼人的行政程序。

Let’s now talk about quality in both undergraduate teaching and research. As for teaching, I have to say in China the average quality of professors is much lower than in the US, comparing to the schools I have studied in US(WashU, Rice, MIT) there is no comparison. Some professors just read slides and play videos, and some of the classes we use pretty old textbooks and the contents are outdated. In Peking they require solid background in basic sciences, which is good in the first place. But those types of teaching could easily make students bored and demotivated.

现在让我们来谈谈本科教学和研究的质量。对于教学，我不得不说中国教授的平均水平比美国低不少，和我在美国学习过的学校(华盛顿大学、莱斯大学、麻省理工学院)相比，没有可比性。有些教授只会照着幻灯片念，播放视频，有些课程使用的教科书很陈旧，内容也过时了。北京大学要求扎实的基础科学背景，这个出发点是好的。但这种教学方式很容易让学生觉得无聊，失去动力。

I would say some problems of the Chinese Universities could also exst in big state schools in the US. It all comes to the point of money and number of students. If I have to make a comparison, Peking/Tsinghua are probably comparable to some state schools in US in terms of quality (maybe Ohio State, University of Minnesota etc.) . Other Chinese Universities have not reached that level yet.

我想说，中国大学的一些问题在美国的大型公立学校也可能存在。这绕不开资金和学生数量。如果让我做一个比较，北京/清华在教学质量方面可能跟美国的一些州立大学(可能是俄亥俄州立大学，明尼苏达大学等)相当。中国其他大学达不到这一水平。

The final thing I would like to say is diversity. Chinese students somehow care too much about grades/ranking instead of actually thinking about their own interests/career goals. Universities do not provide any resources and career services. They just produce students like a pipeline. So the funny thing is that students do not even know what to do after graduation. In Peking most of the students apply for US graduate schools because that is the easiest way to get a “job”.

最后我想说的是差异性。中国学生过于在意成绩/排名，没有认真思考自己的兴趣/职业目标。大学也没能提供任何资源和就业服务。他们只是像流水线一样培养学生。所以有趣的是，学生压根不知道毕业后自己该干什么。大多数学生会申请美国研究生院，因为这是找到“工作”的最简单的方法。

Anselmo Ferreira

I act as a postdoc researcher, so my opinion will be regarded to the "research" duty of the University. I never studied in a Chinese university in my life, but my experience here can help you to imagine how they are .

我是一名博士后研究员，所以我要针对大学的“研究”职责谈谈看法。我没有在中国的大学学习过，但是我在这里的经历可以帮助你想象一下。

My research is related to use deep learning technology (a kind of computer processing technique that simulates our brain understanding on data) focused on performing forensic investigation of documents. China is very interested on develo solutions on this as piracy is a serious problem here (as you might know).

我的研究是利用深度学习技术(一种模拟我们大脑对数据的理解的计算机处理技术)对文件进行司法调查。中国对这项研究非常感兴趣，因为中国的盗版问题十分严重(你也许知道)。

So, detecting forgeries in digital images with deep learning means that I need extremely high computational resources to analyze thousands or millions of images. Normally, we must use GPUs to make our experiments run faster. The more, the merrier.

因此，用深度学习检测数字图像中的伪造行为意味着我需要非常多的计算资源来分析数千或数百万张图像。通常，我们必须使用图形处理器来加速我们的实验。

The "basic" configuration I have in my lab so far is: a CPU cluster with 22 nodes and one machine with 15 GPUs, and they will double this till the end of this year. They took only two months to build an extremely powerful data center in the first floor of our college. They are also building an extremely huge library close to my lab.

到目前为止，我在实验室的“基本”配置是：一个有22个节点的CPU集群和一台有15个图形处理器的机器，今年年底这个数量将翻一番。他们只用了两个月的时间就在我们学院的一楼搭建了一个非常强大的数据中心。他们还在我的实验室附近建了一座非常大的图书馆。

I am older than the university I work. So, things happen faster here.

我的年纪比我任职的大学还要大，所以这所大学的发展速度很快。

Another interesting thing I have never seen in my academic life happens here: they give you money as award for scientific publications, and it is a lot of money (for Chinese standards). Of course, it depends on the journal quality index. So, everybody is focusing in doing the best research here. They took meritocracy very seriously here.

另一件我在学术生涯中从未见过的趣事就发生在这里：作为发表论文的奖励，他们会支付报酬，这可是一大笔钱(对于中国的标准来说)。当然，这取决于期刊质量指数。所以，每个人都专心做研究。他们非常重视人才管理。

I saw several Western professors here, so I believe they share the same opinion as me and I believe the "Made in West" superior education quality is also arriving.

我在这里遇到过几位西方教授，所以我相信他们和我会有同样的看法，我相信“西方制造”的优质教育也正在到来。

Nakano Yamada

Well, this is really a big question. Which aspects do you refer to? The college life? The domitory conditions? The campus love? The difficulty of graduation? or the ranking of China’s universities?

Each of above is a big topic.

这还真是个大问题。您指的是哪些方面？大学生活？宿舍条件？校园爱情？毕业难？还是中国大学的排名？

以上每一个都是一个大话题。

Generally speaking, in China mainland, there are around 3,000 universities in total. As you know China is a big country, thus different universities have different climate, different culture and different food… So it is hard to make a short conclusion for “China’s universities”.

中国大陆大约有3000所大学。你知道的，中国是一个庞大的国家，不同的大学有不同的风土，不同的文化，不同的饮食……所以很难对“中国的大学”做简单的结论。

Alfred W Croucher

Related

Is the Chinese education system really one of the best in the world?

The problem with the Chinese education system is that it is geared towards producing graduates with a lot of knowledge. Successful students have succeeded in memorizing a vast amount of material.

中国的教育系统真的是世界上最好的之一吗？

中国教育体系的问题在于它培养的是知识丰富的毕业生。优秀的学生成功地记住了大量的材料。

However there is not enough emphasis on critical or analytical thinking, on creativity and originality. The problem is that Chinese culture is so ancient, everything has been said sometime. You just have to dig it out and reference it to succeed.

As a result foreign companies in China almost always prefer staff who have been educated overseas for executive positions. They are more confident and have their own ideas. When you ask them a question requiring their opinion on something, they tend to give it more freely whereas a local will tend to sidestep until they can get an idea of what the "correct" answer is.

但中国的教育对批判性或分析性思维、创造力和原创性的重视不够。问题在于中国文化太源远流长了，历史上该讨论的都讨论过了。你只需要挖掘出来进行参考就能成功。

所以在华的外资企业几乎都更偏向于让在海外接受过教育的员工担任高管职位。他们往往更自信，有自己的想法。当你问他们对某事的看法时，他们往往会更直率地给出答案，而中国人则容易采取回避的态度，除非他们知道“正确”的答案是什么。