I don’t know “giving up” (1)

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.



[Gold]

Ep.19 I don’t know “giving up” (1)

I feel like since I started to write about my life in China and in PKU, I only have written about fun parts of my life: my trips, going outs, and so on. Actually, for the most of the time here, I’m busy with memorizing Chinese characters and preparing for the classes. Only 20% of my daily life is something that I wrote in this essay. In other words, only 20% of my life is interesting enough to tell you guys.

I want to talk about some of my classes today, especially classes that I am auditing now. I am auditing two classes in School of Government. One is called western system of civil servants, and the other one is called strategic management.


[The Autumn at PKU]


There are three different majors under School of Government: political science, public administration, and urban management. Western system of civil servants class is a general elective class for all three majors. Strategic management class is under urban management, it is rather like a business class than a political science class.





[The Nameless Lake at my school]








Let me tell you this before I tell you guys anything else: these classes are all taught in Chinese. I decided to audit these classes, first because I am curious about Chinese polisci classes, second to improve my Chinese, and third to prepare for the next semester. When I first started taking these two classes, I understood only 5% of what the professors said. Now, I can say I understand about 50 to 60%, a great improvement!

The western system of civil servants class is about civil servants system of different western countries including USA, UK, France, Japan (westernized country, I guess), and Germany. The class is very dry and sometimes boring although the professor is really good. So far the materials I learned are not that new or profound. For two hours of class, the professor just tells us about the facts—different institutions of civil servants—and stories to help us to understand.

In the strategic management class, we learn how to make a good strategy, the good strategy for firms, or local governments. I never took a business class before, so it is interesting for me to learn a different discipline. The professor for this class actually studied at Berkeley for a year. In lecture, he makes a lot of references to the States and comparisons, which is pretty funny to listen.







Since I’m just auditing them and not taking for credits, I feel less pressure. However, they are still very challenging, and take a lot of efforts to keep up with the lectures. Think about it. I only learned Chinese for two years, so my ability of Chinese is the same as that of elementary students or junior high students. With that level of Chinese, I am trying to take a regular college course: not a science class, but a polisci class, in which the language skill is crucial. It is not even an introductory class for freshmen, but rather a major class for upper classmen. Moreover, I’m not just taking a course at community college or whatever university, but one of the most prestigious universities in China.

I am not trying to glorify myself or anything, I am just stating the facts and difficulties that I am dealing with. Taking these classes actually reminds me of high school years.







In my senior year, which was my 2nd year in the States, I took AP government class. For many of you guys, whose high school GPA were easily over 4.0, AP government might not mean anything. But for me, who recently got used to the system and started to speak English more comfortably, “AP gov” meant a lot.

I really wanted to take it, and wanted to take a challenge. Of course, it wasn’t easy for me. Imagine trying to read Federalist Paper #10 with only one year of formal education in the States (although I took English classes in Korea which is similar to Spanish classes in the States). To be honest, I still have difficulties when I read Federalist Paper today, so how hard would it be at that time? I liked my AP gov teacher and he was nice and different from any other teacher, but he was also a hard grader and teacher. We had to read average 50 pages before every class, things like Federalist Paper and Supreme Court cases.

Then, we had to answer to one or two essay question every class. The essay questions were like following: what is the meaning of “faction” and the problems of “faction” that are addressed in Madison’s Federalist Paper #10, or what is the significance of McCulloch v. Maryland case?



[The PKU campus, beautiful!]






At that time, I barely understood what I read and didn’t have writing capability to rearticulate the reading materials that I read. So, I got D or F on every quiz (he was a hard grader). Later, I changed my tactic. I just memorized important parts of the readings, rather than trying to articulate them in my own words.

I really learned a lot in that AP gov class. It truly prepared me for college courses (specially my major courses). I still write answers to essay questions in a way that I learned in AP gov. It was really hard at that time, but hardship truly paid off later. Without taking that class, my senior year in high school would have been easy and comfortable, yet unproductive and boring: there would have been no progress.

I still have more stories regarding this topic, but today I will stop at here. It’s been four months since I came to China, and I am unsatisfied with the speed of my improvement in Chinese. Maybe I am just being impatient; I still have nine more months. Whether I am being impatient or not, I need to take challenges continuously, and should not be afraid of new challenges. I know that is the one of ways to learn another language fast and enhance your capability.






ps. I am so happy and satisfied with these pictures. :) I took them on last Wednesday, the victorious day for Obama and America, also I skipped a class and took pictures.

more pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/iamadreamer/