Finally – University…

Originally that’s the reason why we are here, so you can expect a serious post… 🙂

What we do, reputation of the University, which courses we have – and what else is interesting about this topic…

Fudan University Shanghai (www.fudan.edu.cn) is ranked as Top 3 University of China in the 2007 THES-QS World University Ranking. Fudan is voted as number 85 worldwide top university, at the same place than the University of Vienna. So this exchange program is located at a high level of international respected universities.

University Twin Towers

So far, to all other people in China I said irrelevantly “… study at Fudan…” I saw the face of the other guy changing to a mix of respect and admiration, because in China not everybody can study – more, University fees are very high and only the best (according to their final exam) get the possibility to study at one of the top universities. And, lots of students doing their bachelor do not get a place for studying their Master afterwards.

Group Picture MCM

More concrete we study at School of Journalism in the MCM Media and Communication Management Master Exchange Program. This program is based on the perspectives of technology, economy and culture/society as you can read in this folder (download) attached.

We did the first part of the one year exchange program in Salzburg and Vienna, together with our Chinese program attendants. Now, the Austrian students are in Shanghai to do the second part.

Getting taught PR campaigns

Most of our professors studied (at least some time) in America. We get taught in a small classroom, just we Austrian students (and in some lectures also some LSE students). Unluckily we don’t get in touch with other Chinese students except those we already know by ourselves from the first part of the program in Salzburg. And this closed classroom feeling gets supported by the forehead style we get taught – not just once I felt more like being at highschool instead of being at university…

Anyway, we have 7 courses at university, of course some more interesting, some less:

• An Introduction to China’s Newspapers and its Evolution
• Introduction to Chinese Culture, one of the most interesting courses – including our weekly Kung Fu sessions (of course an essential of the final grading, too)
• Culture Communication Campaign in China, about especially governmental communication campaigns – e.g. a communication campaign about the one child policy, about late marriages, etc.
• China’s Documentary & Film and its Society, we have to produce an own short documentation film, can use the equipment of the TV station located on our campus
• China English Media and Communication System
• Chinese Language Training

University Welcome Meeting

At the beginning we got invited to a special welcome meeting. Some exchange students from LSE (London School of Economics) and we got invited to join an opening / welcome event with all the important people from university. A hard party night the day before… and, in this night imagine who got persuaded to be the representative for the Austrian students? Yesss.. sleeping some hours, getting up, driving to university by taxi cause lack of time and doing the speech… 😉

From time to time we get invited to special guest lectures (e.g. about the international development of Shanghai). The university also cares about our cultural and practical experiences – they organize trips with excursions to companies to see also the practical side of the theory. Furthermore, there is a trip to the capitol of China, Bejing, with guest lectures at the Capitol Normal University CNU Bejing included.