On the evening of November 14, the Executive Dean of the Zhejiang University/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Institute (the ZJU-UIUC Institute), Professor Philip T. Krein gave a lecture with the theme of College Life in the USA, as the forth “Distinguished Lecture 2016, Residential College”. Many of the students as well as the staff numbers gathered to seize this precious opportunity to have a glimpse of the students’ life in America.

Professor Krein is the member of National Academy of Engineering, US, fellow of IEEE,. And actually, he was also a student graduated fromUIUC. Thus, he has a deep comprehension of the college life in America. During the speech, he not only talked about the history and the formation of American universities, but also let us have a look at how they enroll new students and how the student-exchange system works.

The history of universities in America: In this aspect, Professor Krein said that there are many universities in America that enjoyed a time-honored history of over 100 years. And some of them rank extremely high in the world. This blesses America an incomparable advantage in higher education.

The formation: The formation of universities in America is various, ranging from public to private, 4-year-system to 2-year-system, comprehensive to specific. He also mentioned the differences between big universities and small universities: the former enjoys mountains of academic resources, majors, curriculums and students’ activities while the latter is much more specific in educating and can better cares its students.

Enrollment: Professor Krein p acclaimed that there were many differences in enrollment between American and Chinese universities. In America, scores are not the only standard when evaluating a student. They also take students’ leadership, passion for academy, and the flexibility when solving problems into account. They attach great importance to the diversity of freshmen and some small universities even use 1on1 interview to enroll students.

Student exchange: American universities offer exchange students various study opportunities, and the chance of succeeding in applying for  exchange is getting higher and higher. What’s more, after sharing his personal experience during the underrated years, he also gave students a clear explanation on the preparation of exchange and some notes they should know about.

Core of education: Last but not least, Professor Philip pointed out that the core of higher education in America was to cultivate students’ productivity, leadership as well as broaden their views, deepen their thoughts. So that the students can truly gain the ability to solve real problems and finally grow up, both mentally and physically.

When it comes to the Q&A section, though the speech has already lasted for almost 90 minutes, still Professor Philip patiently answered students questions varying from major choosing, summer school to graduation, which is very helpful.

With the help of Professor Krein, students in the International Campus of ZJU have a deeper understanding of college life in the USA. More significantly, it works up students’ passion for study, by letting us have a more explicit direction and aim to fight for. 

By Alex, Steve & Zac

文／王晶华 邢家琦

图/吴振邦 陈浩楠