I Am the President of the University

(Don’t read it yet, wait until 2 o’clock and then refresh it!!!)

Guo Xin is a professor at Peking University and the leader of Peking University’s carbon-based chip team.

As for this China Forum, given Professor Guo Xin's qualifications and abilities, he would naturally receive an invitation. However, he only discovered this when he looked at the list and asked him to give a special report.

Are you here to settle accounts with yourself?

While Chen Hao was guessing, Professor Guo Xin spoke.

"Principal Chen, is it convenient for us to chat now?" Others let it go, but Ren Hong kept looking at him with a smile, which made him a little annoyed.

"If I had agreed earlier, maybe the person standing on the stage this morning would be me instead of you, Ren Hong."

I secretly complained. Among domestic chip research institutions, Ren Hong from the University of Science and Technology of China is indeed good, but their carbon-based chip team from Peking University is the best in the country.

Guo Xin felt even more sad when he thought about Ren Hongda being in the limelight at the report meeting just now.

"Okay, let's talk on the beach next to the conference center?" Chen Hao thought for a while and replied.

Ludao International Convention Center is close to the seaside. Just across the road is the beach. The name is also very straightforward, it is called Convention Center Beach.

"Professor Ren, Professor Broad, and Professor Miller, I'll excuse you for a moment. See you at the forum later."

After saying goodbye to Ren Hong and Brod, Chen Hao and Guo Xin took the hotel's special car to the edge of the beach at the Convention and Exhibition Center.

After the car parked, the two people walked out.

The reason why we choose to chat on the beach instead of in the conference room is because chatting will also be affected by the environment. For example, people will be more reserved when chatting in a conference room, while it is easier to get closer outdoors.

The wind at the beach was very strong. Fortunately, Chen Hao specially put on hair wax and gel when he went out in the morning. Even if the sea breeze blew freely, it would not affect his handsome hairstyle.

Professor Guo Xin, on the other hand...the already sparse hair on the top of his head showed no resistance to the sea breeze and was blown shapeless.

"The sea breeze on Ludao is really powerful." Guo Xin noticed Chen Hao's gaze, twitched the corner of his mouth, and said with a smile.

"It's okay now, but it was really terrible during the typhoon season." Chen Hao thought of Typhoon Merandi a few years ago. Although he was not in the country, it was so tragic that his circle of friends exploded.

"Professor Guo, is something wrong?" Chen Hao asked pretending to be confused.

What could Professor Guo Xin do to him? You can’t be joining Guanghua University, right?

That is naturally impossible.

The only one that can attract the opponent is the Optical Core Research Center.

The answer is already clear.

"That's right, cough." Guo Xin's face turned slightly red and he asked unspeakably, "I wonder if your school's Optical Core Research Center is still short of people?"

After all, the other party invited him to join, and the school secretary also strongly hoped that he would come and support him.

As a result, I was too arrogant, which not only offended Guanghua University, but also made the secretary unhappy.

Thinking about his original decision, Guo Xin really felt like he was a pig.

How stupid!

"Optical Core Research Center?"

Chen Hao thought for a while and said with some regret:

…

…

Peking University Yuanpei general education curriculum system

1. It has not been established since its inception. This is also an important reason why it was not envisioned when it was first launched and has not yet been realized, thus affecting the effectiveness of this experiment. The purpose of this experiment was to establish a general education system similar to the first-class liberal arts colleges in the United States, but after more than ten years of operation, this purpose has not been achieved. You can find many commentaries on Yuanpei General Education at Peking University online, with mixed reviews. But in a word, this experiment was not successful.

2. Peking University Yuanpei College focuses on general education, but its current training model does not set up its own general education courses, but adopts a platter-style general education method. Whether this method is good or not remains to be discussed, but currently domestic The educational environment makes it difficult to set up independent general education courses. This may be the "experimental failure" mentioned above.

The so-called platter-style general education means that students at Yuanpei College can take all professional courses at Peking University. Therefore, Yuanpei itself does not offer general education courses, but students can achieve general education by freely combining professional courses from different departments. The result of education. Majors will be divided into sophomore years. Students are free to choose any major within Peking University as their major (of course, they retain the right to change directions and take other professional courses). They can also choose Yuanpei's specialty majors: such as PPE (Politics). , Economics and Philosophy), Foreign Languages ​​and Foreign History, Paleontology, Integrated Science, etc. As the name suggests, these majors are a combination of relevant courses from various departments as your required courses.

A banner that launched undergraduate education and teaching reform in this century, Yuanpei College has been exploring a talent training model with a solid foundation and a wide range of talents for 13 years. It is one of the first colleges in China to test the waters of general education. The accidents, frustrations, embarrassments and even controversies that "Yuanpei" encountered in this talent experiment fully reflect the difficulty and pain of general knowledge.

Peking University Yuanpei is the earliest and relatively mature model in domestic general education reform. General education is now being rolled out in various universities, but the current results are not particularly good - but at least it has taken a step forward.

3. According to the talent training plan of Yuanpei College, after freshmen enroll, they can theoretically choose any course offered by the school and listen to whatever they want. The course study plan is all made by themselves; starting from the sophomore year, students can according to You are free to choose the direction of study according to your own interests, and there are no restrictions in theory.

"Spiritual freedom, academic freedom, and learning freedom." After entering Yuanpei, the first feeling almost all students feel is "freedom", but soon after, most people begin to feel "confused."

A student who enrolled in 2004 once published an article online complaining about Yuanpei's "free system." For example, the "tutoring system" that is supposed to be responsible for guiding students to choose courses and majors has limited effect. In fact, freshmen in Yuanpei Grade 04 can't even get a departmental course plan and have to go to the academic affairs department of each department. "Take a look."

Compared with these trivial matters, the freedom to choose courses becomes a bigger obstacle - you can listen to all the classes in the school, but what exactly do you listen to.

At Peking University, undergraduate course plans are mainly divided into two parts: professional courses and general elective courses. Generally speaking, professional courses are more difficult than general elective courses. According to the idea, after any Yuanpei student is in his sophomore year and chooses his own major, the courses he has taken in other departments can replace the general elective courses, and he can graduate with full credits.

For students, such regulations are tantamount to shackles in addition to "free treatment": they choose courses based on their interests. Once their test scores are not satisfactory, they will lose a certain degree of freedom when choosing a major.

Many people who have come to Yuanpei have personally experienced the process of compromising with "unfreedom." Zhang Wanting, a 2003 Yuanpei law student at Peking University, told reporters that in the first few years of Yuanpei’s implementation, performance points were not a thing that was valued. “Most students in 2002 and 03 classes chose courses based on their own interests. "Difficult courses were a trend at the time." But since then, the focus has become more and more grade-oriented.

The existence of "grade point" standards still makes students have difficulty choosing courses.

Zhou Wenjie was admitted to Yuanpei College in 2008 and is currently the class teacher of Yuanpei College in Grade 13 at Peking University. What he observed is that there are fewer and fewer students in the college who choose courses based on their broad interests, and many freshmen have strong plans as soon as they enter the school. For example, in the first semester of their freshman year, the course selections for Grade 13 freshmen are concentrated in the fields of economics, management, mathematics, political economics and philosophy, and there are no courses with a particularly wide span of subjects.

Xu Chongren explained that the biggest difference between Yuanpei and various departments is that traditional professional departments can develop themselves without external force, while Yuanpei often needs the support of the school to continuously formulate various special programs suitable for Yuanpei. policy. "Professors need to do research and need their own graduate students, so they must rely on professional departments. Yuanpei alone cannot do it."

Zhou Wenjie said frankly that the "freedom" provided by Yuanpei College for students is still a "negative freedom" in a sense. "Students have to take risks to choose courses without fully understanding what this major is about, and they have to judge whether these courses touch on the core issues of the major." Especially for freshmen, the psychological pressure is suddenly Just came up.

Not long ago, a post on Peking University’s BBS went viral. The poster said that he applied to extend his schooling, but was rejected by the school's Academic Affairs Office, which delayed his plan to secure a postgraduate degree.

Not long ago, a post on Peking University’s BBS went viral. The poster said that he applied to extend his schooling, but was rejected by the school's Academic Affairs Office, which delayed his plan to secure a postgraduate degree.

This student is Lu Weicong, who is in Grade 10 in Yuanpei. After completing the mathematics professional course, he hopes to conduct cross-learning between mathematics and computer subjects, so he applied for an extension. According to Yuanpei’s teaching plan, students enjoy a flexible academic system and can complete undergraduate education in 3 to 6 years. However, the reason why the school's academic affairs department did not grant the extension was that the student's graduation credits had been completed.

After coordination, Lu Weicong’s application was finally approved. However, this matter still caused subsequent discussions within Yuanpei: Yuanpei has not escaped the trouble of the "dual-track system", and some of the college's teaching systems do not receive effective administrative protection at the school level.

Although the "dual-track system" has not completely disappeared over time, Xu Chongren said that Yuanpei College is a model based on the diversification of student sources that is beneficial to the improvement of undergraduate education. Yuanpei's reforms address two prominent problems in higher education: students enter professional studies too early, resulting in a narrow range of knowledge; and most students blindly choose majors, resulting in gaps in their studies.

"Peking University is about cultivating the same students into different people." Xu Chongren said that Yuanpei provides students with more choices. It may not be suitable for all students, but it has its necessity. "

4. Marginalization of general education courses

Whether "general knowledge" or "liberal education" literally emphasizes broad knowledge. When Chinese universities carry out general education, a common practice is to require students to take elective courses outside their major.

Peking University offers five major categories of general elective courses, covering mathematics and natural sciences, social sciences, philosophy and psychology, history, linguistics, literature and art. Students must complete at least one course in each category to graduate.

This approach is partly based on the curriculum of elite American universities, the most well-known of which is the University of Chicago's "core courses" for junior students.

This approach is partly based on the curriculum of elite American universities, the most well-known of which is the University of Chicago's "core courses" for junior students.

The core curriculum includes three major categories of subjects: humanities, mathematics and natural sciences, and social sciences. It emphasizes the Western classical humanistic tradition, classic reading, and critical writing. It has a heavy load and high standards. It is by no means something that students can just put in a little effort outside of professional courses. It is passable, so students at the University of Chicago actually start to focus all their energy on their major courses in their third year.

In comparison, a Peking University student needs to complete 140 credits to graduate, and general elective courses only account for 16 credits. The rest are required major courses, major elective courses, English courses, and political courses.

In the lower grades, students spend most of their energy on professional courses, while in the upper grades they are busy with internships, job hunting, applying for overseas graduate schools and graduation thesis. The effective teaching time of the university is actually only three years.

Teachers at Peking University have invested considerable enthusiasm and effort in general elective courses. The teachers who teach general elective courses are many domestic first-class scholars in related fields. However, the lack of institutional guarantee of core courses means that general elective courses are at most an adjustment to professional courses. Yuanpei’s Students receive no special treatment.

Generally speaking, students at top American universities need to complete three to four courses per semester, but each course comes with considerable homework and reading, while Chinese college students generally study eight to ten courses per semester.

Chinese college students do not work harder than their American counterparts. Doubling the number of courses can only sacrifice the quality of completion. One or two general education courses each semester may completely become formalism.

Studying any subject requires examining the history of knowledge development.

5. For example, Peking University formulated and implemented the "Yuanpei Plan" in September 2001. Since 2002, a new teaching plan has been revised, and a free course selection system has been implemented for all undergraduates in the school. In terms of curriculum, in addition to professional required courses, school-wide required courses, and public elective courses, general elective courses are also provided. General elective courses include several courses in five fields: mathematics and natural sciences, social sciences, philosophy and psychology, history, linguistics and art. At the undergraduate level, the curriculum model of “general education + wide-caliber professional education” has basically been formed.

Starting from the new semester of 2005, Fudan University has integrated the school's 68 majors into 7 categories, including humanities, law and politics, economics and management, natural sciences, technical sciences, mathematics, and hospitals. Freshmen will first study at Fudan University in their freshman year, and then enter the professional school one year later. Department of study. The college has reconstructed the curriculum content system according to the training objectives and established a curriculum framework for comprehensive education, basic liberal arts education and professional education.

Xinya Academy, established by Tsinghua University in 2014, draws heavily on the American liberal education or general education model in its educational philosophy and teaching plans.