University of leeds chinese ba 2012 entry

If I get into Durham, it will be my firm. But I don't know what to put as my insurance - Leeds or SOAS ? (or as my firm if I don't get into Durham)

From what I know (but I'm not sure, feel free to correct me or give your opinion), SOAS has a very good Chinese program. The courses are really good. But the uni is not very well-organized ...

While Leeds has a lot of activities, is well-organized, makes you feel at home ... But I don't really know about the courses :/

Leeds has more options for the year abroad, though.

What do you guys think ?

Does anyone have and suggested reading for this course? I spoke to a person at the open day and she said one thing she regretted was not doing some reading during the summer before her course started so I'm taking it into account. However it's proving difficult because the Leeds website doesn't really have any reading lists available. Can anyone help?

thanks!

By reading, I think she means just learning some characters to give you a head start... By all means knock yourself out with some cultural stuff, a couple of books could include The Search for Modern China by Spence, the Mao biography by Jung Chang, anything by Xinran, Cambridge Companion to Modern Chinese Culture... if your focus is on more ancient stuff, then look at A History of Chinese Civilisation, but I looked mostly at modern issues and political/intl relations. I would advise though getting a hold of Eating the Dragon book 1, and learning the first few chapters (not pronunciation, just how to write the characters if you know stroke order, or be able to just recognise them, and write down the romanised pinyin).

Good luck! (I graduate soon )

Brilliant! Thank you very much! This will be a big help

and congrats on graduating soon!

I'm going to uni in 2013 so i'm looking at unis now.

I'm looking at SOAS, Edinburgh, Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle.

I was looking at Durham, but there it's chinese studies so it's less about the language..

anyone got any advice for which uni is the best to study chinese?

Also, about the BBC thing, I'm half hong kong chinese (so my family don't speak chinese), half english, does this make me a BBC?haha

I'm going to uni in 2013 so i'm looking at unis now.

I'm looking at SOAS, Edinburgh, Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle.

I was looking at Durham, but there it's chinese studies so it's less about the language..

anyone got any advice for which uni is the best to study chinese?

Also, about the BBC thing, I'm half hong kong chinese (so my family don't speak chinese), half english, does this make me a BBC?haha

The courses at Leeds will work your arse off. There's a wide selection of modules once you get back from your Year Abroad, for instance you can do Classical Chinese, literature, politics, business all within Chinese, as well as cultural optional modules and electives. It will be hard work but you will end up with a very high proficiency level.

For the Year Abroad, when I went you could go to Beijing, Shanghai or Taiwan (Tianjin wasn't being offered although I don't know if they're offering it again now). Leeds does send you abroad in your second year which will feel terrifying and it won't be fun for the first month but your level increases so fast... I knew people who were studying at my uni in China from Manchester, Edinburgh and Dublin, who were in their third year, and their level wasn't as high as ours was by the second term of our second year.

Now I have a weird question about the year abroad. I read almost everything about the year in China but what I don't know is how do you get there!...I mean: you take the airplane from Leeds along with others from the course or, as in my case, I can leave for China from Rome? It would be more simple and less expensive...Help!

You can get there any way you want I flew to Japan, bummed around for a fortnight then caught a boat to China... other people got the Trans-Siberian, but in general people flew from wherever they wanted. Some people did go to London in order to fly with other Leeds people; indeed, if you want the university to pick you up (some unis offered) then you need to be in a group, but in your situation, no, just fly from Rome and then get a bus/taxi to your accommodation

You can get there any way you want I flew to Japan, bummed around for a fortnight then caught a boat to China... other people got the Trans-Siberian, but in general people flew from wherever they wanted. Some people did go to London in order to fly with other Leeds people; indeed, if you want the university to pick you up (some unis offered) then you need to be in a group, but in your situation, no, just fly from Rome and then get a bus/taxi to your accommodation

Thanks so much lovers in japan for answering all the questions. Just out of curiosity, how do we choose/get to be selected for the universities in China? Is there like a limit to how many people can go to each one?

Oh, I forgot to ask you, just for curiosity, what do you plan to do next? What career can you follow? Are there many requests for BA Chinese graduates?

Short answer: you decide. If you do Japanese at Leeds, they decide where you go... with Chinese, you choose. In my year we had like 25 go to Shanghai, 15/20 to Beijing and the rest to Taiwan, so there doesn't seem to be a limit (apart from in terms of uni provided accommodation although to be fair everyone moved out within a month or two).

Same requests as for any degree in terms of entering graduate schemes... with the addition of language specific jobs ie teaching, translating, interpreting, or business in China. Me, I will be entering the Civil Service as long as my marks are good enough! You can do whatever you want though; most people don't know what they want to do yet, but it's a very good degree and certainly won't limit you in terms of prospects!