Let me tell you my impressions on the students and the facilities that I have. There are 45 juniors in my Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing Class and 50 freshmen in my Engineering Materials class. All the students are majoring in Mechanical Engineering. I teach 5.5 hours on Monday with a 3-hour break, 3-hours Tuesday, 1.5 Wednesday and 4 hours Thursday with no break. Every class is in a different room in 3 different buildings. I guess since I am here for only 5 weeks, that is, how they could schedule my longer-than-normal classes. The classrooms all have a computer and projector units. In fact, only several of our newest rooms at OIT have this technology. So it makes it nice. At the beginning of the class, you go to the office of the building you are in and check out a key for the computer cabinet. I have yet to take off my coat in the classrooms, no heat! But then I guess I have not seen anyone sleeping in class either.
The students do not respond to questions that I ask in class. I have divided them up into 4 person teams and then when I ask team #1 or #2 a question, they then respond. Very interesting. In one class a young lady gave me a mic and small tape recorder to wear. She said her mother said that this was very important for her future.
In talking to the faculty, knowing English well will result in a better job in China. There are many multinational firms that do business abroad. It was fascinating to hear that their graduation rate is about 98%. That is of 100 students entering mechanical engineering, 98 graduate. The average in the US is about 50%. At OIT it is a little better. I was getting this information from the Dean today at lunch. He also went on to say that maybe only 10% are very good and deserve an engineering degree. They graduate the others because parents and the government would be upset if they did not. Wow. After a student begins in engineering, very few are allowed to switch majors. I guess that just does not happen.
Students do not necessarily choose engineering, it is their parents who choose it for them. Also, it sounds like there are tests to get into school. The high achievers go into (in this order) medicine, computer science, economics, business, engineering. Wow again. In the US engineering students who can not cut it go into business, economics, etc.
In some of my PR talks to get students and parents interested in engineering I have used the fact that the US graduates about 70,000 engineers per year and China graduates about 650,000. 40% of Chinese government officials have an engineering background and <1% of those in the US do. Well, I'll have to rethink all this.
Lots more to tell but I'm ready to have a break. Bye for now.
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4 comments:
I hope you're speaking proper English if your students' entire futures rest on it!
That is interesting that the majority of students graduate just because of their parents or the government. I wonder how many people in China actually enjoy the job that they have?
So it sounds like the classes, on average, are a little more difficult in the US than China? Or do they just pass the student no matter what? Interesting to get a first hand feel for engineering outside of the US. I will be curious to see how the students do overall in your classes and what kind of reviews they give (if they do that) and compare that to OIT kids.
This certainly gives one an entirely different opinion on Asian students being so much more advanced than US students! Go figure!!
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