2008 Woodie Awards
SectionsStudy suggests overseas campuses are risky
Kandice McKee
Issue date: 1/18/08 Section: Features
Students Hui Sheng, Bing Hu and Yunhan Zhang all agree leaving Missouri State University's branch campus in China behind for the main campus in Springfield has given them more opportunities both academically and culturally.
This may contradict exactly what one study focused on foreign institutions in China had warned against.
Because Missouri State's branch campus at Liaoning Normal University in China only offers one associate degree and one bachelor's degree in general business, transferring to the university's main campus gave the three international students a greater variety of majors to choose from.
"Basically, there are two reasons (why I came to Springfield)," said Sheng, now a junior accounting major, in an e-mail interview. "First, I want to change my major, which cannot be done at the branch campus. Second, I get to learn about another culture."
Hu also changed her major to human resources management upon reaching Springfield.
"In Springfield, I could learn more things than in China, and there have also been high level professors," Hu said in an e-mail interview. "Coming to Springfield also gives me a chance to see a different sight."
Zhan, like Sheng, changed his major to accounting when beginning studies at Missouri State's Springfield campus, but his reasons for studying abroad were driven more by the new cultural experience.
"I am attracted to its (Springfield's) better education and the American culture," Zhang said in an e-mail interview. "And my friends told me that Springfield is quiet; it is a good place for studying. Moreover, I can improve my English."
While the study "British Universities in China: The Reality Beyond the Rhetoric" focused on British education affairs in China, "the warnings … could apply to American universities as well," Paul Mooney wrote in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
In the study, Ian Gow, professor and founding provost of The University of Nottingham Ningbo, China, warns institutions that teach in English could serve as "a threat to our ability to recruit students for Asia Pacific."
This may contradict exactly what one study focused on foreign institutions in China had warned against.
Because Missouri State's branch campus at Liaoning Normal University in China only offers one associate degree and one bachelor's degree in general business, transferring to the university's main campus gave the three international students a greater variety of majors to choose from.
"Basically, there are two reasons (why I came to Springfield)," said Sheng, now a junior accounting major, in an e-mail interview. "First, I want to change my major, which cannot be done at the branch campus. Second, I get to learn about another culture."
Hu also changed her major to human resources management upon reaching Springfield.
"In Springfield, I could learn more things than in China, and there have also been high level professors," Hu said in an e-mail interview. "Coming to Springfield also gives me a chance to see a different sight."
Zhan, like Sheng, changed his major to accounting when beginning studies at Missouri State's Springfield campus, but his reasons for studying abroad were driven more by the new cultural experience.
"I am attracted to its (Springfield's) better education and the American culture," Zhang said in an e-mail interview. "And my friends told me that Springfield is quiet; it is a good place for studying. Moreover, I can improve my English."
While the study "British Universities in China: The Reality Beyond the Rhetoric" focused on British education affairs in China, "the warnings … could apply to American universities as well," Paul Mooney wrote in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
In the study, Ian Gow, professor and founding provost of The University of Nottingham Ningbo, China, warns institutions that teach in English could serve as "a threat to our ability to recruit students for Asia Pacific."
Be the first to comment on this story