Dr. Jerry Martin from Muskingum University (MU), visited Cuiying Honors College on Monday, 14th October, and introduced a new “3+1” partnership program to students, which offers students the opportunity to get two degrees, one from each university, by studying for three years in China and one year in the United States.
At first, Dr. Martin briefly introduced the U.S. university classification and the status of MU as a regional university. According to Dr. Martin’s explanation, national universities in the U.S., such as Harvard University, Yale University and other state universities focus more on academic research and postgraduate education than on undergraduate teaching, because some professors concentrate the majority of their time and energy on academia and lack time to care about undergraduates. As a result, some doctoral candidates, who are these professors’ students, may take their place teaching classes. Dr. Martin argued that, on the contrary, MU, as a regional university, focuses more on undergraduate teaching, and small classes are so common that professors are able to interact with students frequently both in and outside class.
After this introduction, Dr. Martin explained the content and costs of the “3+1 program” in detail. MU is strong in humanities and social sciences, and thus has many courses on religions, history, literature, philosophy and sociology, etc. Students are also able to take some basic courses in science and engineering fields. In the premise of finishing some compulsory courses such as mathematics and English, students are allowed to select courses freely. Besides, in order to help students adapt to the life and study in the U.S., MU also offers ESL courses (English as a Second Language). The costs of this program were comprehensive, including tuition, full board and a dorm on campus. Alternatively, students are also optionally able to apply for a tuition-free exchange program, but they would not gain a degree from Muskingum.
After Dr. Martin’s entertaining explanation, I shared my own experience of the life and study in MU as an exchange student last year. Finally, Ms. Hong Jin from the Office of International Cooperation and Exchange of Lanzhou University, thanked Dr. Martin, and gave the exciting news that Lanzhou University is trying hard to gain CSC funding for this program. The presentation ended with a couple of students’ questions.