<p>Blue Jay. Here is some advice in answering your question. The course content and structure of the first year of the MIR and LSE-Beida programme are almost identical. so your beida experience will be very similar either way. The LSE part should be what sways you. And some advice you didn’t ask for but very profoundly need to know, you cannot build the social network you so desperately seek by being arrogant. At grad school level people are done with the high school practice of self-obsessed self-aggrandising. you’ve achieved a lot, so will everyone on your programme have. no one wants to help out the guy who can only speak of himself and his achievements. be wise. good luck</p>
<p>Who said anything about aggrandizing, I understand the course structure of both programs but the most important thing for graduate school is the return. EG After speaking with professors recently I were told LSE-PKU students would have more funding opportunities to present papers then the MIR students or that the MIR program no longer will allow a student to take foreign language that isn’t chinese. But you’re observations of self aggrandizing are flawed. The use of the word fluent is thrown around too much. UCLA appears to be BUSINESS Proficient, many of the people writing here are proficient yet write fluent and it is frustrating and outright false. I stated a fact about my language level and if you feel thats self aggrandizing I’m sorry you feel that way. But as someone who just had to interview a replacement for my position anddealing with 30 individuals whose resume all wrote "fluent’ in Chinese and then proceeded to show they were merely proficient is a big problem. Its false advertising and if I did not check then the company would have created problems. I find that since this is your first post as well you are ■■■■■■■■ so whoever you are the fact you waste your time on this is…yeah…at the time I wrote this I was less sure than before. But I broke the first rule of the internet. Dont Feed the ■■■■■.</p>
<p>BlueJayBJ,</p>
<p>I don’t think sino88 was ■■■■■■■■. In fact, nothing of his or her behavior suggests ■■■■■■■■.</p>
<p>As for my Japanese language ability, you don’t know me from Adam, so I find it a bit presumptuous on your part to gauge my ability. In my heyday, I was fluent: read, write, speak. Perhaps not at your level, but I was reading a paper, speaking without major problems, and writing regular correspondence in an adult manner.</p>
<p>Alas, such skills erode over time when unused, and I am back a fair bit from those halcyon days. </p>
<p>I’m not really sure how you-- perhaps indirectly-- accuse me of false advertising, either. I long since removed “fluent” from my resume, and replaced it with that oh-so-vague title of “business proficient.” Of course at interviews my skills speak for themselves, but I do not claim to be that which I am not. At least not anymore.</p>
<p>However, just because my blade has dulled over time doesn’t mean I no longer know how to use a whetstone. What was frustrating was that you not only imply that I am a liar, but that I also don’t know how to learn a language. </p>
<p>Then, you accuse another of being a ■■■■■. C’mon, let’s all just get along here, folks.</p>
<p>i feel bad for uclari–it seems like bluejaybj has gone out of his way to argue with/defame uclari in nearly every single IR topic in this forum. instead of arguing, i hope that everyone can get back to the purpose of this forum, which is to help those that are asking questions about grad school. helping others is more important than winning an anonymous internet argument about graduate IR programs. </p>
<p>anyways, i hope this post doesn’t send me in the flamestorm. i’m just a bit tired of seeing people’s pleads for help turn into accusations and insults.</p>
<p>pedrotaves,</p>
<p>Oh, don’t feel bad for me. Honestly, I just want to provide help like I have for years. I’m sure BlueJay has good intentions in mind as well, but it didn’t go well between us here. It’s okay, in the end, what matters is that people get the help they need.</p>
<p>This has already become a flame war and I don’t appreciate it. I never went out of my way to call out UCLA and in fact what was originally a legitimate question became a flame war because it went off topic and I dont appreciate it. And I admit being snappy and it has less to do with UCLA and more to do with frustration that sometimes spills out in the anonymity of the internet. But I don’t appreciate how a thread where I once asked for help and advice soon became all about attacking. And the only time I criticized ucla unfairly was here, my first comments about LSE were correct because he/she was falsely saying that no employer in the states would recognize the LSE name which is completely untrue. If you see the other thread we were giving an individual advice with no insults whatsover thrown at each other. So although you claimed not to be doing a flame war, thts exactly what you are doing…</p>
<p>BlueJayBJ: have you posted this on the gradcafe forums? Seems like those boards are a bit more populated with graduate students than here on cc, so you might get some new insight on your situation…</p>
<p>I have not done that thanks I’ll look into it</p>
<p>BlueJay,</p>
<p>Just to make things easier on you perhaps, my name is Ari. I’m comfortable with using my real name in this case.</p>
<p>Anyway, I didn’t say that “no employer in the States would recognize LSE.” Please don’t put words in my mouth. I said that LSE is a harder sell than American schools, which is an opinion that I still hold.</p>
<p>There’s a huge difference.</p>
<p>OP: I’m going to butt in and say that whenever you ask for advice, you should be prepared for a variety of opinions. It’s up to you to (quietly) ignore or follow advice. If you become defensive or denigrate people who are trying to help, even if you disagree with them, you then discourage others from responding.</p>