<p>Yeah, if I were at least conversational in Mandarin (or Cantonese, since that’s my native language), the awkwardness may go away somewhat (I’ve been raised totally American, so the chances of me sticking out like a sore thumb in China are likely). Are you from China, too, perhaps? I was brought to the U.S. when I was a toddler, so I don’t remember China.</p>
<p>I have friends who transferred from CC to university, and none of them had trouble with classes. The only problem is that a lot of their credits wouldn’t transfer, so they would end up at university for an extra 1-1.5 years when they thought going to CC would cut down on U time.</p>
<p>I’m second/third generation. My siblings all married second/third generation so none of my sisters families have native speakers. My wife is multi-lingual - seems to be able to pick up languages with ease so she could speak Chinese (multiple dialects) at home.</p>
<p>Well, China’s a big country so maybe it’s a little easier to blend in…as long as you just look Chinese and don’t say anything. That’s my strategy, anyways, whenever I see my very traditional Korean relatives…just smile, bow, and say “Yes.”</p>
<p>You might try taking a summer class at your new university to help get adjusted.</p>
<p>Nice strategy. . .I have a brother who frequently uses that strategy whenever he’s at an Asian market. I like it when he goes there because he doesn’t act like such a loud-mouth.
It’s nice to be able to blend in. It only gets weird when Chinese people tell me that I don’t look Chinese.</p>
<p>lol, why don’t people think you look Chinese?</p>
<p>I dunno. They get all uptight when I ask them. They usually think I’m Korean. One of my siblings is Korean; both Chinese and Korean people usually mistake me for Korean since me and my Korean sib really look alike. I’ve got to get a DNA test done one of these days . . .</p>
<p>My math classes at a CC covered more material and had harder exams than the same courses at the school I transferred into. My linear algebra teacher said that was a relatively recent trend.</p>
<p>That’s good to hear about cc, Tomservo. I’m going to be taking my required math classes this upcoming semester. What math classes did you take that you really enjoyed?</p>
<p>Well, being mistaken for Korean isn’t that bad! You should learn Korean and Chinese–then you can fool people into believing you’re either one, depending on what ethnicity you decide to be for that day, like a super Asian.</p>
<p>That’s a good idea! I should learn Korean and Chinese. When school lets out, I’ll go back to watching kdramas. Any kdrama suggestions? I haven’t watched any this year.</p>
<p>I should clarify: it was a relatively recent trend AT MY CC, which was Columbus State Community College (the uni being OSU).</p>
<p>I took all of my calc there, linear algebra, discrete math, and differential equations (one class for ordinary and partial). I often ran into students who had taken the same classes earlier at OSU and asked them about it, or asked the teachers (some of whom also worked at OSU or knew math teachers there). My multivariable calc exam was harder. And like I said, we covered more material. Especially in the case of discrete math, where we covered about five times what they covered at OSU.</p>
<p>This was due to a few reasons:
- nearly everybody who took higher math than calc II at CSCC was going into engineering and so the math classes were either taught by engineers or by mathematicians who knew to focus on methods rather than proofs and properties. In diffy qs we spent all of our time solving various types of diffy qs, rather than proving minutia and going over lots of properties that weren’t relevant to using the math, in discrete math we covered everything from logic to set theory to proof by contradiction to proof by induction. At OSU they spent all of their time on proof by induction.
- Not a single teacher was a grad student
- The teachers knew what material was important and so they taught it.
- “Weeding” wasn’t a priority, teaching material was.
- Small class sizes allowed for more class interaction and questions to be answered (I guess this is what recitation is for, I don’t know if 4-year math classes have recitations but we didn’t need it)
- I only had one foreign-born math teacher, and that person spoke perfect English
- Teaching was the priority, not research, so the job kind of weeds out people who aren’t good at teaching or don’t want to do it.
- Small class sizes means no multiple choice tests or homework, and our homework was graded by the person who taught.
- I said it before but I’ll say it again: bad math teachers (for an English-language student body) are heavily represented in grad students at 4-year universities, and in tenured profs for whom teaching and social interaction is like walking on hot coals.</p>
<p>At a four-year university, things get much better in junior or senior level classes. Class sizes become smaller, you tend to get more professors and fewer grad students, etc.</p>
<p>A person above made a post about community college students having trouble getting their credits accepted at some 4 year universities. My impression is that it is easiest to transfer credits if you stay in the same state, particularly because there are many agreements already in place. </p>
<p>Some universities have websites where you can find out which credits will transfer and count towards a major. That would be a good exercise to complete before a person picks a university.</p>
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<p>Or picks a community college, or picks courses at a community college. Here in California (where one can use <a href=“http://www.assist.org%5B/url%5D”>http://www.assist.org</a> to check course articulation), it is often the case that community colleges emulate the courses at a nearby four year state university, but may not have as good coverage of courses at more distant four year state universities.</p>
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<p>Our local community college, until about five years ago, didn’t offer any math courses beyond precalculus. My daughter’s CC which is 40 minutes away, offers Calculus 3 as the highest math course but it’s only run in the summer and I don’t even know if they really run it because so few students pass Calculus 2. They have two professors that teach calculus 2, one at each campus. One of them is awful - doesn’t teach all of the material and does a poor job at it but still tests on the required materials. The other is an excellent teacher, covers most of the material and tests on all of it. You need to do some self-study in the latter course to do well.</p>
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<p>This may be a useful approach for some students but what about those looking for a more theoretical approach. Say, someone going into Computer Science to become a computer scientist. Perhaps they would benefit from abstract algebra topics in discrete math.</p>
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<p>I made a post about getting courses transferred. My son took an intro CS course at his state university. There were 90 lab assignments. They ranged from taking 15 minutes to 40 hours to do. They also had weekly quizzes, essays, 3,000 pages of reading. My daughter took the comparable course at the nearby Community College. There were five labs that took from one to four hours to do. The issue on transfer is that there might not be enough in the CC course to match the university course and the student would be at a disadvantage in courses that had it as a prerequisite.</p>
<p>I understand that there are very good Community Colleges. My understanding is that the Community College in California are quite good because the students go into the CSUs. But I have seen many community colleges where the academic level is not up to state university levels - both in person, in talking to professors about transfer students and in looking at the curricular materials at various community colleges in other parts of the country.</p>
<p>Kdramas? Man, I haven’t watched those since high school…I guess the one’s I remember were the most popular a few years ago were The Baker King (this one was big), Secret Garden (this was huge too), and then some sappy romance ones a while back like Personal Preference and Full House. But really, there’s like a gazillion to choose from nowadays.</p>
<p>My wife watches those on Hulu. There seems to be an unending stream of them there.</p>
<p>I liked the Baker King; though, I never really understood their passion for bread. . . My mom loves Secret Garden. I used to watch them on Hulu when I had that free-hulu trial. A lot of them are on Netflix now. Yeah, Full House was pretty fluffy. Rain looked like such a goofball in that one.</p>
<p>Hi WonderGirl2013!</p>
<p>So in response to your original post, you shouldn’t have to worry about being humiliated at all. I have a lot of asian friends, and they range from absolute geniuses to failing courses. Also, since you seem to be very aware of your position and are even asking for advice, you’re already better off than some asians out there :)</p>
<p>As to your other point regarding Chinese, I’m gonna first give you a little background about me. I’m Cantonese. My parents are from HK but I was born and grew up in the USA. That being said, I grew up speaking Cantonese and also attended Chinese school to learn mandarin. Now, I can speak conversational Cantonese and Mandarin (my Cantonese is obviously better though) and I can also write (sort of).
If you want to improve your Chinese, my advice is to get as much exposure as possible. I saw in your previous post that you used to speak Cantonese as a child. I’m assuming that means your parents are fluent Cantonese speakers. Ask them to speak to you in Cantonese more if they are not already doing so. Work on your speaking skills with your parents as well. They can provide feedback and corrections. As for taking classes, makesure you have the time and passion if you’re taking language courses. They are a lot of work and time consuming…something you might want to think about especially with your major in BioE. An alternative (as someone else mentioned) is to go to a chinese school. Someone else mention Boston, personally I know there are tons to choose from in the greater washington area and also northern virginia. The one I go to happens to have both Mandarin and Cantonese classes, although most only offer mandarin. Also consider if you want to go to a Taiwan-based or China-based school for mandarin. There are pros and cons for both, so let me know if you want me to go into more detail. Lastly, utilizing pop culture and media outlets is also a great way to improve vocab. I don’t know what shows you’ve watched or like to watch, but I personally love TVB dramas!!</p>
<p>Sorry for the long post, but I hope this helps and good luck with your endeavor!! It’s always nice to meet another fellow Chinese ^_^</p>