We’re happy to welcome five Chinese exchanged students to campus this semester! “Everybody wants to have the chance to study abroad and so do I. It’s a good chance for me to broaden my Horizon and learn English,” said Jiawen Zhang, also known by her English name Carmen.
According the Carmen, a junior from Wuyi University located in Jiangmen China, her major at Wuyi and Old Westbury are not identical! Carmen said, “My major in China is Social Work and my major here is Psychology.” This issue is familiar to another Chinese student named Zhao Jiayi, also known by her English name Connie, who said, “my major in China is teaching Chinese as a foreign language but here I have no choice. I can’t choose this major here, I don’t know my major here.” Becky Evans, the Assistant Director of Admission at SUNY at Old Westbury explains this issue. Evans said that by looking at the transcript of Chinese students, they often have majors that consist of two academic programs in the U.S but consist of one in China. She added that, “A lot of them major in Business English for example. This is very unique for us because those are two separate academic programs. So when we look at the courses that they need, we communicate with our partners and see what these students can take.”
The students compare the level of difficulty of Chinese Education and American Education differently.
Cai Haojun, also known as Ken, is a junior majoring in Computer Science in both SUNY at Old Westbury and Wuyi University. Ken finds his classes really easy. He said, “I’m taking four classes and two of them I already took in China. The only thing is that it’s quite different because here they teach in English.” On the contrary, Carmen said, “For me it is more difficult in America because it is only in English.” Ran Ma, who only goes by her Chinese name, is a junior majoring in Media and Communications in both Minzu University in Beijing and SUNY at Old Westbury. Ran seems to agree with Carmen that school is more difficult for her in America due to the language barrier.
The Chinese students all came to America for the opportunity to broaden their horizon but chose SUNY at Old Westbury for different reasons.
Ken, Carmen and Connie all came from Wuyi University had no choice considering Old Westbury was the only option their school was offering. Zhan- Ya Ting, A.K.A. Judy, from Jinan University in Guangzhou, voiced that her first choice was to go to a school in England where she got accepted. She explained, “I had to pay too much money to exchange, so I came to my second choice, Old Westbury, which is cheaper.” Ran Ma’s choices were much broader as she responded, “Actually, there are so many different programs I could choose from. There are opportunities in countries in Europe, I could go to Australia, Hong Kong or Taiwan. For me, I want to go further with my studies in America because I think that America is the best choice among these.”
The student’s perceptions of New York differs from their expectations.
Ran Ma said that New York is not what she expected! She elaborated saying, “I’ve been to the city and honestly, and I’m a little disappointed. That’s because my American friends told me that in New York people smile at each other. Everybody is just very cold.” She further said, “Also, before coming to Old Westbury, I knew very little about black people. There are not many black people in Beijing, and there are so many Chinese people with stereotypes because of what the American media told us. After coming here, Media really… I don’t even know how to explain. I see that black people are very warm hearted! I see that the race problem is a really big problem in America!” New York is not what they expected though. Judy said, “New-York is not bad but it’s far different from our expatiations. Also, people are not as friendly as I imagined!” On that note, Connie commented, “We always think of New-York as Manhattan and now we are in Long Island and it’s totally different!”
The Chinese students feel a very warm welcome from the SUNY at Old Westbury’s student body and faculty. Ran Ma said, “The students are very nice and helpful. I lost my phone once and two girls were late for class helping me find it.” They all express not really missing Chinese food; they all just want to try real American food! Connie said about campus, “the food here is okay!”
From left to right: Connie, Judy, Carmen