<p>I like both schools sooo much. I applied as "major undecided" because I think that college is a brand new start and I want to explore what interests me as a major when I'm actually THERE(I'm from China btw). So I've been back and forth. I like the weather of California, you know, sunshine, palm tree, ocean breeze... and the weather of Wisconsin is harsher.. and I think the "academic atmosphere" of these two are similar... but I heard that UW-Madison has a higher privilege as a public school... and of course there are other factors like career options but should I take career to consideration? I mean this is undergrad school... Can anyone give me some constructive advice or just personal point of view? Thanks a million! (HELP.)</p>
<p>You should have a general idea of the fields that most interest you. Is it the social sciences and humanities or the math, science and engineering? You will need to decide if you are going to take classes in math, chemistry, physics early on because those fields have many courses required in sequence. Check out the course offerings for each school in fields that catch your interest. For example, UW has several different introductory chemistry classes based on one’s plans. Check the list of undergrad majors- you may want to take a class in some obscure area for the fun of it. Not all schools offer all majors. If the math and sciences interest you check to see if computer science and statistics get their own department (btw- many courses are cross listed in different departments) and have a wide variety of courses to choose from.</p>
<p>Even though you will be an undergrad you may want to check on the grad school ratings in fields of interest. The TAs (teaching assistants) will be grad students in those fields and you may end up taking some grad level courses in your major by senior year.</p>
<p>You might decide to take some courses about China- see your own culture from a different, academic perspective. See what is offered. </p>
<p>Notice I paid attention to the academics. You will likely find many more Chinese ancestry students in California. It may be more comfortable for you to have that cultural aspect or you may choose to be in an entirely different atmosphere. Check with the Chinese and International student associations if you want questions answered about being Chinese on each campus. </p>
<p>No matter which school you choose enjoy it and never look back.</p>
<p>Thanks for your advice:). Yeah I thought about the general field actually. Science and engineering seem possible. I also like archetecture design, because I like majors that sometimes require my original idea and inspiration… But it’s not impossible for me to choose business… The problem is that too many Chinese students choose business related majors and it just become “overly reputated”.
Also, about the fact that there are too many Chinese students in California, I believe it has pros and cons. Some people(some are Americans) tell me to give up on the place that is too “Asian”, because I will come to America to learn and experience … But UCSD looks pretty diverse and of course, “Asian”. You might have seen or heard that Chinese students only hang out with Chinese students, and they form a group like a myserious team around the campus… So they don’t communicate with Americans etc. I don’t know. I think it 80% depends on yourself. If you want to talk to Americans then go for it, just be yourself… But too much information has flooded me, I still cannot make a wise decision, starting to doubt myself… I think there’s one missing reason for me to find that can push me to choose THE right school… But yeah, as you said, once I decide, never look back. I really want it to happen soon…</p>
<p>Hello jinqing - you might enjoy reading this article which was in our local Madison, Wisconsin newspaper about some innovative Chinese students out to help others acclimate: <a href=“Chinese students at UW-Madison take to YouTube to explain cultural differences”>http://host.madison.com/news/local/education/university/chinese-students-at-uw-madison-take-to-youtube-to-explain/article_24c670a6-d906-5327-89be-e3414d5107c8.html</a></p>
<p>Chinese students at UW-Madison take to YouTube to explain cultural differences</p>
<p>Ye Du and Cecilia Miao arrived in Madison four years ago feeling alone and anxious, knowing almost no one, not trusting their English and lacking basic knowledge of their new home.</p>
<p>“I wondered why everyone was wearing red,” said Du, a native of Shandong Province, China — Confucius’ birthplace — of her first glimpse of UW-Madison. “I didn’t know anything about Wisconsin. I didn’t even know it was a cheese state.”</p>
<p>“Or a beer state,” said Miao, who grew up in the sprawling metropolis of Guangzhou just north of Hong Kong.</p>
<p>Four years later, the journalism majors are channeling those feelings of isolation, which for many Chinese students never go away, to tell the story of the university’s largest foreign contingent in a series of YouTube videos.</p>
<p>Called Channel C, the videos call to mind an old Woody Allen movie but on a different topic: everything you ever wanted to know about Chinese students but were afraid to ask.
They feature both Chinese and American students speaking English with subtitles in Chinese. They carry a candid but fun-loving tone, with slangy thought bubbles often appearing next to speakers. And they rarely miss an opportunity to fit in a pop culture reference: their promo video is set to the “Mission Impossible” theme song.
“We’re not this alien ‘other’ group,” Miao said. “We should try to celebrate differences, not ignore it.”</p>
<p>The tone ranges from solemn and serious, as when they discussed the Chinese student killed in the Boston Marathon bombing, to the lighthearted: an episode in which Chinese and American male students are shown a series of photos of Asian women, whom they rate basically as hot or not. The point: Beauty standards are much different here than in their homeland.</p>
<p>What began as a hobby project has now attracted about 690 subscribers. Their third episode, “Why Chinese Students Don’t Speak English?”, has received more than 32,000 views. The episode is bookended by two scenes in which a group of Chinese students and a group of American students share an elevator.
In the first elevator scene, the Chinese students speak Chinese, leaving the American students bewildered. The final scene imagines them in China. The American students start speaking Chinese but realize it’s hard to do and they sound clunky. They revert to slang-heavy English, leaving their Chinese peers bewildered.
In between, the show’s founders — Muge Niu, Fangdi Pan and Miao — explain the awkwardness they feel trying to speak English with native speakers. Chinese students often come to campus having learned only academic English. Miao mentioned American slang — “peeps,” “chillax,” “fo real,” “fo sho” — that can confuse them.</p>
<p>“They’re so easy for native speakers but it’s hard for us,” Miao said.</p>
<p>The most recent episode — “Why Chinese Students Don’t Party” — will be followed by another on the theme of “Teach Me How to Bucky,” “Jump Around” and other game-day traditions through Chinese eyes.</p>
<p>“These are the things we talk about with each other,” Miao said.</p>
<p>They hope the short videos will open conversations with the broader Badger community, encouraging American-born students to venture a bit out of their comfort zone as the Chinese students have by coming here.</p>
<p>“It puts a more human face on the Chinese students,” said Luke Povolny, a senior economics major from Appleton.</p>
<p>Povolny, a friend of one of Channel C’s founders, said he hadn’t thought much about China before transferring to UW-Madison last January but has since learned a lot. He was recruited to play one of the American students in the elevator for the language episode.</p>
<p>“I could imagine being in their shoes,” he said, “if I was in a different country and didn’t know the language as well.”</p>
<p>Although the Chinese student population has exploded both nationally and at UW-Madison, in the last decade, progress in mixing with American-born students on campus has come more slowly.</p>
<p>A survey of Chinese students at Indiana University last summer found that many Chinese students reported having no or few American friends. They tended not to participate in big social events or go to games. They didn’t attend parties and spent most of their free time with other Chinese students.</p>
<p>At the University of Iowa, the health service center last year started training nine Chinese-speaking students as crisis chatline counselors after noticing the group was using mental health services more often than other groups on campus.</p>
<p>Nearly 2,500 Chinese students enrolled at UW-Madison this fall, including 288 freshmen. Enrollment has grown 356 percent from 2003. But similar feelings of isolation from the mainstream culture persist.</p>
<p>“No one has ever said I’m the shy girl in China,” Du said. “But here I became the shy girl. It changes your personality.”</p>
<p>They launched the video series last spring partly out of frustration. Miao said they attended a campus forum in March about UW-Madison’s involvement with China. Miao said it was well attended by faculty and older community members, but few students were there.</p>
<p>“We had this question,” Miao said. “We wondered why people aren’t interested in these conversations when we have so many Chinese here?”</p>
<p>Miao, Niu and Pan sat down and talked about how to bridge the gap. Nicole Huang, director of the Wisconsin China Initiative, recommended a “bottom up” approach. While the students had little experience in video, they decided it was the best way to communicate.</p>
<p>“Videos can talk to many people at one time and stay there,” Miao said. Using their own basic cameras and editing software, they sat down on a couch to film their first episode about why Chinese students choose UW-Madison.</p>
<p>Unlike some of their American peers, they choose the school with little thought of the campus culture of football games and parties. Many arrived as she did, knowing not much beyond the college’s rankings in U.S. News and World Reports.</p>
<p>In the first episode, Niu said she visited campus from Connecticut, where she went to high school, and fell in love with it. Miao, who chose the school sight unseen and had never been here before heading off to college, took a different route.</p>
<p>“It was the only place that accepted me,” she said.</p>
<p>She arrived in Madison, the first time she’d left China, for fall classes in 2010. For the first time in her life most people looked different than her and spoke a different native language. At first she tried hard to make American friends and fit into campus life. But language hangups among other factors eventually drove her back to the safety of other Chinese students.</p>
<p>Follow-up years brought much more interaction with students from all groups on campus but she still understands why some Chinese stick together.</p>
<p>“It’s your own people,” she explained. “They don’t judge you.”</p>
<p>Read more: <a href=“Chinese students at UW-Madison take to YouTube to explain cultural differences”>Chinese students at UW-Madison take to YouTube to explain cultural differences;
<p>Hello Madison85, thank you so much for providing this article for me.
Yes, nowadays many Chinese students come to America to pursue high education. You can see them in every college there. For me, well, I’m social, and like to party and meet people. I can say that I have the confidence to talk to native speakers. Actually I didnmt used to because I thought I had heavy Chinese accent but I did a lot of practice on that, and I talk to lots of English speakers in real life & online. So now the communication doesn’t seem to be a problem for me.
I decided to study in America totally on my own. My family was against my idea at first. I tried really hard to convince them-“this is my dream and I’m gonna accomplish it and I can.” I’ve never been abroad. This is the biggest desicion I have ever made in my entire life. Maybe I had too many bright expectations before but even there will be trouble, I will have to face it on my own. I will try to fit in, make a lot of friends, enjoy campus life, and most importantly, learn and experience. And now I’m finally here, thinking about which collee to go. I’m admitted to six schools. All are big public ones. I narrowed it down to 2 to make a decision. I don’t know which is THE BEST for me.
Since facebook and youtube etc are blocked here, I looked through the stuff about UWM and UCSD on Tumblr and other sites. The sports spirit of UWM is pretty impressive. A few days ago the basketball team won the game right? I saw pictures where students are all exciting and kinda drawing me in. (Btw I really like red color lol. So UWM sounds great.) But when I looked at the picture of UCSD, the endless summer just appeals to me soo much. I know these things might not be the most important factors when choosing a school but I hope my next four years can be comfortable and full of great experience… Maybe it would be easier to choose if I could visit the places…
I have been losing sleep lately… This decision making thing is really hard for me… Sighhh</p>
<p>What I’m really not sure about is not if there are or are not any Chinese students, it is actually the number of them. I know every coin has two sides. On the one hand, being around with Chinese students can make me feel “homey” because we are from the same country like we got each other’s back, which is really nice for someone’s first year in a completely strange environment.
On the other hand, because there are too many, we tend to help each other, starting to stick together too much. And the phenomenon in the article will show up. Chinese students talk in Chinese and don’t talk to any other people except Chinese people…
I really don’t know. I have never lived abroad and experienced this situation. But mostly it depends on different people right? Like if you are outgoing enough you can talk to many people and make friends with them, your personality plays a big part. </p>
<p>Definitely check on the academic offerings- it sounds like you can do well culturally anywhere.</p>
<p>Yeah they offer same strong majors. Like both are good at med, engineering and biology. But I think UWM offers more options… Like business related stuff is not so popular in UCSD.</p>
<p>Oh and I just realized I mistyped one word… I meant “higher prestige as a public school” not “privilege”… Sorry. </p>
<p>How about UW Madison vs UCSD in terms of undergraduate biology? </p>
<p>Both are very strong in bio related areas.</p>
<p>UW is an academically superior school to UCSD (unless you want to study oceanography or similar field). San Diego has wonderful weather. Choose wisely. </p>
<p>Hi there!
I’m from Madison myself and my best friend almost went to UCSD. In the end, he did not go to UCSD because it is mostly a science/math/engineering school and he did not know if he wanted to major in the sciences. He did say the UCSD campus is beautiful, the student body was very intelligent and committed to their work, and the science programs seemed great.
Madison, in my opinion, is a great university. It has great programs in almost every field, not just sciences. UW does have a very strong business school, too. Also, while there are more Asian students at UCSD, UW has Asian students as well. At UW, it might be easier to make friends with both other Asian students and American students. At either school, you’ll be able to find other international students that remind you of home and make friends with Americans.
Personally, I would recommend UCSD if you know you want to go into the sciences, especially if you are at all interested in Marine Sciences.
If you think you might want to do business, I would recommend UW.
I know it’s a hard decision to make because you could change your mind and end up not liking the school you picked! I didn’t pick a major until my second year of college and now I am in the process of transferring to a school that has the major I want.
You don’t have to pick your exact major now, but I would definitely try to figure out what areas you might want to study. If it might not be science, engineering or math, I’d go to UW.
But as you said, UCSD definitely wins for weather. </p>
<p>Hi:)
I do want to “explore” before I’m sure of what my major is. So I think at this point UW is better for me. Like you said, “it had great programs in every field.” And it provides more options. My major might be science/engineering/business related stuff, now I don’t have a clear direction yet. So I think the school that offers broader strong fields seems about perfect to me. And UW has more activities, and there are many Chinesd students, too( less than UC schools but this is a “just right” amount). Although it gets really cold there, but the school and the city are so great that I’m willing to overcome the weather problem. </p>
<p>That’s great! I’m sure you’ll love UW. Best of look to you 
</p>
<p>Welcome to Wisconsin! Enjoy the four seasons and your college experience. Winter includes many fun experiences on campus and is quite conducive to staying indoors to study instead of neglecting that for time outdoors. Do not second guess your decision but enjoy your choice.</p>
<p>Thanks! Haha yes the cold outside can keep me indoor and study hard. That’s good. lol</p>
Hi jinxing, are you finally at UW-Madison? How are you enjoying the university? We are trying to decide on an university for our daughter. She is American Indian ( Asian). Any feedback/insight will be appreciated. What did you finally choose as your major? Thanks…Aruna
Poster #18- “American Indian” implies Native American, not “Asian Indian”. My H is an Indian immigrant and therefore our son, another UW grad (as I am) is half Asian Indian as well as being American born.
The OP likely is not posting on CC anymore- it was 3 years ago since the thread was last responded to before you. S/he is likely immersed in college and no longer cares about this website. btw- the photo and name seem to be of a nonIndian- vastly different Asian cultures depending on which ethnic group one comes from.
Madison has several good Indian restaurants, at least one within walking distance of campus. Plus grocery stores on the west side.