by Shen Youqian 沈有乾
6. Choosing a School
CHOOSING A school was even harder than choosing a major, in the first place because there were more schools than there were majors, and in the second place because the difference between schools A and B was much less evident than the difference between subjects A and B. Our basis for selecting schools was made up of the following: "School introduction" type literature printed by the schools themselves, Wang's English language A Guide to Studying in the US （《留美指南》）, the experience and opinions of instructors in the school, and information from friends in the States. Besides these, there were several American schools that ran advertisements in Qinghua publications welcoming Chinese students. I remember one such school's advertisement read "Men and women of both sexes are admitted" (两性的男女兼收), a joke that to this day I cannot forget. But these advertisements generally had little effect on us.
The school introduction literature was only good for future reference. For students who had no idea, it naturally was no use. But looking through it when one already had a certain school in view, one could avoid making the mistake of going where one should not; a literature student would not make the mistake of going to a tech school, or a male student would not make the mistake of going to a girl's school.
A Guide to Studying in the US would seem to be the most useful since it listed the conditions at each school. Apart from the campus, climate, and departments, is also listed cost estimates, treatment of Chinese students, and other related topics, all of which interested us. Many of my classmates' final decisions, I'm afraid, were made primarily on the basis of this book. But to trust the book too much was to invite deception, since the information in the book was obtained through a survey of Chinese students at the colleges, and their views naturally lacked a common standard. An estimate of living expenses was always a reflection of one's own standard of living, and whether Americans were "friendly" or "prejudiced" was mostly determined by whether one had a talent for international relations or had no grasp of etiquette; it was not necessarily the most objective of facts.
Our instructors could be divided into two groups on the basis of their opinions: the first group advised us to enter a large university, while the second advised us to enter a small school. Schools with few students had many advantages: teachers and students could work closely together, and Chinese students had opportunities for extra-curricular activities. A fair number of students sent telegrams notifying their schools of their arrival times and were granted the honor of having the president or some other official personally come to the train station to meet them. One can see from this how these small schools valued Chinese students. Very large schools were the exact opposite - one classroom could have as many as several hundred students, with the professor's face difficult to make out clearly. If you went to see him outside of class, even after making an appointment, you still had to wait your time, so it fell to teaching assistants to answer most common questions. Large schools had their own advantages, however: good professors, good laboratories, good libraries - these were all things a small school could not match. Fortunately the choice of a small or large school was not absolute; many students chose a "small to large" plan.
Why I chose Leland Stanford Junior University is an interesting story. When I was in my first year of advanced studies, an American woman lecturer came to set up a relationship between us and American high school students. Because a friend of hers worked at a school close to Stanford, we stared writing letters to students of that school. After a while, interest in these new pen pals waned; most people wrote about three letters before stopping. My pen pal was the only one to really take advantage of this opportunity, and by the time he entered Stanford, and I was about to leave the country, we had not yet stopped writing. His letters attracted me to Stanford.
It was the custom at Qinghua for travel fees not to pass through students' hands. The superintendent's office took care of everything for us from Shanghai all the way until we reached our prearranged school. Afterward, however, travel fees when changing schools were not covered by the superintendent's office; we could only save a little from our monthly allowance or borrow against our return trip fund. Thus no one wanted to go to the West first, even though western America had good schools, the land and people were worth exploring, and the climate was warm and enjoyable. In a pleasant turn of events, just as we were about to go overseas the superintendent's office changed their policy - if we changed schools in an easterly direction, they would cover the charges. So out of 29 people, at least four went to California: one to UC and three to Stanford.
(待续)
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