Campus Life

We would like to give you some details about life on the Main Campus of the University. We have been piecing together the facts little by little. Much of the information has been the result of our asking some very direct questions of the students, the staff, and our fellow teaching companions.

The Campus

· We are living on one of three campus sites of the Shandong University of Technology (the Main or West Campus). This campus is where all the expansion is occurring -- there is a major westward expansion project underway -- and where all our classes meet. (Construction, or Crane Heaven, will be a future topic on this website, so stay tuned.)
There is also the East Campus, more toward the center of town, and the North Campus, which we drove through for the first time yesterday, also closer to the town center.

The Dormitories

· There are eight dormitories here, where roughly 10,000 students live six deep. As you may be able to see from the photos, there is "plenty of room." Some students have managed to find space for a TV and computer. The total student population on the three campuses is about 20,000.

The Morning Jog

· There is a great deal of regimentation. About 3,000 Freshmen are out every morning at 6:15 for their twenty minute jog in formation. We can hear the chant, "yi, er, san, yi, er, san. . ." (one, two, three, one, two, three) as they pass by our window. No need for an alarm clock!

The Lunch Break

·They all move from class to class in two-hour blocks with their individual set of classmates. Bells actually ring. Of course there is the two-hour lunch break from 12:00 to 2:00. This allows for dining, and the nap, something that students, staff, and most of the country take part in. Next month that lunchtime will be extended for the summer season and will run from 12:00 to 2:30. We, of course, would have a very different approach to organizing the class schedule, and would avoid the hottest part of the afternoon for trying to hold classes. Call us crazy!

Distance Learning

· A large number of our students have attended an interim "university," called Television and Broadcasting School, to improve their skills for entry into the full-fledged college programs. We have just recently learned that it is a form of distance learning, with instruction delivered via broadcast. We had had the mistaken idea that these programs were for the study of broadcasting.

The National English Exam

· Our sophomore students will be taking a national English exam in May. They are naturally very anxious about this; the consequences of a poor grade will probably determine the rest of their lives. We hope to be given some specifics about the exam content, (we have been asking for it for weeks), so that we can prepare our lessons with this information in mind. It would seem like an obviously efficient use of foreign language teachers.

Leaving Home

· The students are wonderfully innocent, provincial, and very homesick. Most only get home twice a year, and need to spend a day getting there by bus and train. They cling to one another - two boys or two girls walking arm-in-arm is quite common, and is simply a bond of friendship and comfort, nothing more.

We continue to learn and grow.

See you next week.

Note:
To enlarge and/or clarify these photos using Microsoft Photo Editor, right-click on the photo and save it to
a file, then open it as a jpeg with MS Photo Editor.

A View of Campus

A Dormitory Room

Plenty of Room

The Morning Jog

Jogging Around Campus

A Physical Education Class