Choose the right school (ZZ) [复制链接]

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发表于 2004-2-23 13:04:47 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

发信人: ivypeng(荼蘼·常想一二·养病), 信区: Abroad. 本篇人气: 332
标题: Choose the right school (ZZ)
发信站: 南京大学小百合站 (Sat Feb 21 11:25:25 2004)

It is about time for those USTCers who got their offers seriously consider whi

ch university to go to. I just want to say a few words on choosing the right s

chool out of my our experiences.

There some general guidance on choosing the school.

The most important thing for any Chinese student is the financial surport. Of

course you should accept the offer with full surport. If you get full surport

from more than one universities, (congratulations!) you have to choose based o

n some other factors. Please be adviced, several thousand of dollers differenc

e is not that important as long as it is full surport. Because the difference

between the living expenses can easily offset that.

The overall environment of the school is very important. What I mean about the

overall environment includes the research environment, the location of the sc

hool, the humanity environment of school.

The research envirnment is determined by the following factors, how many profe

ssors actively working in your specific or closely related field, how many gra

duate students and post doc. in their labs, the research facilities they have,

and most important -- the funding condition. Try to get as much information a

s you can on these things. You will find that them having a great impact on yo

ur study and research. The exact rating of the school in your area is not that

important if the rates are just off by a small number (say less than 10).

The location of the school determines how easy (or hard) your everyday life wi

ll be after you get here. The big cities are convinient, of course. Small town

s are quite. (I lived near Boston when I got here and moved to New York city r

ecently. So I didn't get much experience of the quiteness.) Staying close to t

he big cities means you can easily get fine Chinese food, big Chinese supermar

ket instead of small convinient Asian store, and big Chinese community. (You w

ill sometimes find that you have to have such a community to feel some sense o

f belongings.) Later on, big city means more oppotunities when you start your

job-hunting. However, you also have to take into account the surroundings secu

rity of the school. Big cities tend to have higher criminal rates. Taking U.Pe

nn for example, it seats in a pretty bad district in Philadelphia. Lots of dru

g related cases are uncovered in campus. (I just heard from friends. I can not

endorse that with 100% sure.) I personally won't go there. Another example is
Columbia University. I saw at least five robberies reported la
st semester here. Cornell is located on top of the hill in a quite and nice to

wn. However, one of my classmates who graduated from Columbia and just went th

ere for her post doc. told me that she missed the City so much. One of my frie

nd in Dartmouth once amazed me by saying that he had to drove to Boston (aroun

d 200 some miles) every other month for some Chinese grocery shopping. The siz

e of the school is also something you should keep in your mind. Most of the un

iversities in the mid-west and west are very big. You almost can not travel be

tween the dorm and the department building by your feet. You have to take the

public tranpotantion or drive. In the east, school are more compact. The subwa

y systems in the big cities are generally very convinient.

The humanity environment of the school will affect your mentally when you get

here. In my opinion, USTC offers too few humanity trainings to us. (At least d

uring the 90's, when I was there.) So choose a university with great humanity

tradition and strength may add more educational value to us. In this sense, I

prefer Ivy League universities than others like MIT or CalTech. In terms of in

dividual university, you have to do some research to find out more detailed at

mosphere inside that university. I talked to many friends, both Chinese and Am

erican, from Harvard. Everyone says that it is very stressful to be staying in

side Harvard. Actually, I heard a Harvard CS student (from Tsinghua) jumped fr

om the top of their department building less than three months after he got he

re (1997). Yale is much more leisure compare to Harvard. (At least, I got that

feeling. Probably because I never got addmitted to Yale :-). ) MIT is too rig

id compare to any Ivy League universities. In general, the universities in the
east offer more traditional education than those in the mid-we
st and west.

I think the last thing I would like to emphasize is that you should find a sch

ool that matches your known interests. If you like to enjoy sports and have mo

re open atmosphere, you should choose a university in the mid-west or west. If

you like to explore the traditional European culture, humanity or social scie

nce a little bit at your spare time, you should consider the university in the

east.

In short, choosing the right school is a complex process. Don't limit your cri

teria to only those acdemic factors.

Here is my priority when I choose.
1. surport condition
(1.5) Close to your GF/BF.
2. research environment
3. location and size
4. humanity environment

Just my 2 cents.

Good luck,
Oliver

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