Put the results of the college entrance examination first, lest anyone doubt the truth of the answer. I come from a second-tier city, and my grade barely reached 985 (majoring in German at Beijing Institute of Technology). By chance, I chose the University of Macau to study sociology. But I have been here for two years and have never regretted my choice.
The reason why I chose the University of Macau at the beginning was nothing more than 985, a middle-class student in the mainland, failing to get a good major, and 985, a last-class student, wasting my score. Of course, it can be said to be as high as possible, but it is by no means stuck in the "high" and "low" positions of 2 1 1 as some ancient answers say.
After that, I comprehensively considered my interest and willingness to go abroad in the future, chose the University of Macau, and successfully won a full scholarship (nonsense here, the so-called coefficient theory is not necessarily reliable, and English scores may also be taken into account. After all, the admission criteria of the University of Macau is still a mystery. Therefore, if you are willing to go abroad, your grades are in the range of 2 1 1 to 985, you are not satisfied with the universities or majors that may be admitted to the mainland, and you like the open and free learning style, then Australian universities are a good choice.
Regarding the comprehensive strength, if we only look at the hard indicators, the QS ranking of Australian University 18 is 443 (consistent with that of Tianjin University) (updated: the QS ranking of 202 1 rose to 367), and there will be differences among majors (see figure). However, from the perspective of Australian college students, it is difficult to evaluate the comprehensive strength of Australian universities, because the foundation of Australian universities is not strong, but because of the high salary and national attention in recent years, it is a place full of opportunities and challenges. For the right person, the University of Australia may be able to surpass the mid-stream 985, and for the unsuitable person, it may be the ordinary level of 2 1 1.
Personally, I think consciousness and autonomy are the two most important qualities in the future. These two points will often be mentioned later. Hymns In recent years, the qs ranking of Australian universities has been rising, and the level of mainland students being admitted to Australian universities is also on the rise. Therefore, Australian universities today cannot be confused with those five or six years ago. Maybe this answer will be out of date in two years. I will update with my fate.
Update: For students who want to apply for foreign graduate students, Australian universities are worth coming. However, if you want to take an examination of domestic graduate students (especially in northern Guangdong) after graduation, it is still recommended. . Farewell, after all, postgraduate entrance examination and applying for leaving the country are completely different roads. Because of its short development time, Australian universities are not well recognized in the Mainland, and only enterprises and schools in Guangdong are relatively recognized. As for employment, it is not difficult to find a job in Guangdong, but the tuition and living expenses for these four years are compared with the income from working after graduation. A little lost. Different people have different opinions.
I didn't want to answer more questions about the quality of teaching in Australian universities, but recently I have seen some misleading answers.
Personally, I think the upper limit of teaching quality in Australian universities is very high and the lower limit is relatively low. After all, Australian universities are relatively rich, and the high salary attracts the big cows in the industry to teach (it seems that the annual salary of associate professors seems to be around 600,000 RMB), so the powerful professors are all doctors from famous foreign universities, and most of them have teaching experience in foreign universities. Of course, because of the rapid development of Australian universities in recent years, there are also a few professors with poor level and poor classes. Personal luck is better, and I haven't experienced the latter personally, but in fact, I can ask others more before choosing courses and try to avoid such professors.
In addition, other answers also mentioned that the professors in Australian universities are very good! Because there are fewer studious students (mainly unpopular majors), if you are unfortunate enough to have many accounting and finance majors, you can only be more active and work harder than others. . ), Australian professors welcome students to ask questions, and in recent years, many young professors have come, all of whom are life mentors and are particularly easy to get along with. It is also excellent to make an appointment with the professor at Pacific Coffee after class to talk about future planning.
Unlike mainland universities, most students are not active in class. For example, the first row will never be satisfied or even no one will sit; No one answered the professor's question, so he had to ask himself and answer it awkwardly; Few people ask questions after class or go to the professor's office for hours. Therefore, if you want to impress the professor, you just need to answer as many questions as possible and take the initiative to find out what the professor doesn't understand. Actually, it's enough.
About the recommendation letter
Unlike mainland schools, most professors in Australian universities love to write their own letters of recommendation, so obviously, the advantage of getting a strong letter of recommendation is to communicate with professors, do research together and show their disciplinary thinking ability. Most professors are willing to write letters of recommendation to their students. According to their words, "it is our responsibility to write letters of recommendation to students".
If you have the intention to write a recommendation letter from a professor, besides communicating with the professor at the beginning of your freshman year, you will start to make further preparations in your junior year. On the one hand, we should ask the senior professor if he is willing to write a letter of recommendation, at most, whether there is any demand and so on. On the other hand, you can send an email to the professor to express your thoughts, take a pit first and keep in touch.
In addition, except for a few courses, all courses in Australian universities are taught in English. You should know that as long as you are not a native English speaker, you will have a certain degree of accent. But English accent is not as important as we think. What really matters is fluency and naturalness. Besides, not everyone in foreign countries speaks English similar to TOEFL, so it is also important to adapt to English with different accents.
For example, when I go to UIUC to communicate, I often can't understand their accent English when I communicate with students from South Korea, Southeast Asia and Hispanic, except the standard English taught by me. Most Australian professors I know are fluent in English, so my friends and I can only spit out pronunciation (some accents like Peruvian accent and Finnish accent are really difficult to understand). So those who teach Cantonese and English in one answer can wash and sleep.
Other answers about other aspects of teaching are written in detail, so I won't repeat them here. Of course, the most important thing in Australia is two words, conscious+independent. I have also seen some people enter the honorary college of Australian universities with full prizes, and then they don't study or participate in activities. They skip classes every day and come down for a semester because their grade points are too low (
Let me talk about opportunities and resources. To tell the truth, Australasia has many opportunities and resources, depending on whether you have found and seized them with your heart (for example, Australasia Today, which is regarded as rubbish by many people, and the activity poster posted in e6). Let's start with China. Because we are in the SAR and the target of the government's strong support, we have many opportunities to teach, communicate and volunteer with top universities in China (Tsinghua Peking University is indispensable) every holiday.
On weekdays, various national competitions in Macao are also participated as separate competition areas, and because the overall atmosphere in Macao is really Buddhism, few people will sign up for these activities. This is your chance. Moreover, internationally, Macao is similar to Hong Kong, and its international status is quite special. Many well-known international organizations will set up branches in the University of Australia to hold competitions. Think about it. In mainland China, you need to compete with talents from dozens of provinces and cities for places, while in Australian universities, you only need to compete with dozens of people. What is this concept?
Moreover, due to the cooperative relationship with many famous foreign universities, Australian universities have a western-style teaching system and a good reputation, so it is much easier to apply for foreign graduate students than the mainland. Of course, there are also some (mostly) activities specifically aimed at exchanges between Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan and the Mainland, giving priority to local students in Macao (including some exchange programs in the Mainland, such as Fudan University, Zhejiang University and Tsinghua), so sometimes we really envy local students (but to be honest, let's ask ourselves, even if we had gone to a mainland school, would we have the opportunity to exchange in Tsinghua? )
These activities are really many in Australian universities, and most of them will put up posters or send out electronic posters, but it is easy to miss them if you are not careful. Therefore, when you come to Australia, you really have to seize the opportunity yourself. Don't be lazy at ordinary times ! Take part in more meaningful activities. If you don't pay attention to opportunities and complain that Australian universities are not good enough after four years of decadence, there is really no way. You might as well go back to high school and learn more.
There are many exchange opportunities offered by Australian universities, and they should all be one semester's exchange. Every college, Gao and HC have different exchange programs. Generally speaking, the exchange schools provided by HC are in the top 50, and other projects will be slightly worse, but not much worse. If you want to exchange, you must take the TOEFL IELTS test in advance, and some have requirements for gpa. In addition, some top schools in the Mainland give priority to enrolling local students in Macao, and in recent years, they are required to be permanent residents of Macao, which is very unfavorable to mainland students.
But if it is an exchange abroad, you don't have to worry about this problem. So, what I can give you is to apply for exchange students from famous foreign universities, or attend summer classes in foreign universities. There are really many exchange opportunities in foreign schools. In China, except for a few Australian universities that are friendly to mainland students, other schools do not welcome mainland students to a certain extent.
I followed HC's exchange program and went to UIUC for an exchange semester. Although I only stayed for two months because of the epidemic, I still came back (this experience is really amazing, if anyone is interested, I will be even more hahaha). The key point is to feel the importance of speaking bravely in English learning. In fact, most China students' spoken English is not bad, but they usually speak less and dare not speak. Therefore, everyone should talk more in class!
Update the situation of honorary college. Honorary College (HC) must enter if it can. Usually, all winners will automatically join HC, and if they fail to catch up, they can also apply for joining. Because Honorary College will provide students with good exchange schools, all of which are the top 50 American schools in QS (Umich, BC, UIUC, etc. ).
The competition of HC application basically only depends on TOEFL score and leadership ability (this is not clear), which is relatively fair. Among the exchange schools provided by colleges and universities, foreign schools are relatively average, while good schools in the mainland (Peking University, Tsinghua, etc. ) for mainland students, it is basically unattainable.
Other answers have been said in 7788. To sum up, most people believe in Buddhism, but there are also a few outstanding people who learn baldness and participate in activities to explode their liver. It depends on which side you choose and what kind of person you choose to be with. It's easy to fail a course or even get a B, but it takes dozens of times of efforts to get an A, and you need to choose a good professor. (ps: Most local students are Buddhists, but the TOEFL test 1 10+ will suddenly come out. There are also many mainland students who show off their college entrance examination results all day, and then end the term. . )
I don't have many local students in Macau, but most of them are lovely people. Because Macao students are relatively laid-back, most of them don't actively participate in and discuss group work like mainland students, and they may also lack knowledge and methods. But as long as friendly communication and mutual help are provided, the group work can be well completed.
Personal experience and good group discussion atmosphere have basically laid the foundation for the quality of group work (although I have heard some unpleasant experiences from others, the group work I have cooperated with local students is basically pleasant, so I can only talk about my views from the positive side. If I want to see the negative side, I should find it in other answers. ).
Speaking of group work, I must add that the so-called group cooperation is two-way, instead of just one person making all the decisions, doing all the work without consulting others, leaving no room for other group members, and then accusing others of hitchhiking (laughs). In a word, there are strong bosses among mainland students, and some local students become bosses because they went to an English teaching school with very high teaching quality in high school, but on the whole, there is no difference between them, and everyone has a good relationship.
Another small suggestion is that there are not many mainland students in Australian universities, and the circle is small. Everyone basically knows that news travels fast, so once a wonderful person appears. . Congratulations, your story will soon be known to mainland students in the whole school. Therefore, I still hope that everyone can put themselves in their shoes (especially when the group is planning) and control the length of some of their speeches! Otherwise, other team members will not finish! ! ! ) be less procrastinating and perfunctory, resolutely not be a hitchhiker, and have a little sense of responsibility when doing anything in any position.
If there are contradictions between mainland students and local students, after all, there will be contradictions when two different branch cultures meet, and most of these contradictions are only manifested on the Internet. But I believe that mutual respect and communication are the most important, and the starting point of most contradictions is the lack of respect and communication. When I first arrived at school, I was also afraid to communicate with my local classmates, not because I was afraid of them, but because I felt isolated in a completely strange language environment.
But later, I found that even if some local students are not good at Mandarin, they will try their best to communicate with me in Mandarin. At the same time, I am also learning some simple Cantonese, which is also a kind of respect for Macao's local culture. Therefore, don't stop communicating with Macao students because of language problems. Language is not a wall separating local students from mainland students, but also applies to people from other cultures. I'm working hard in this direction myself ~ (of course, if you really meet someone who refuses to communicate on an equal footing, just go back bravely, and such a person will be spurned everywhere)
Most of the mainland students I know are also very simple, sincere and easy-going people, and there are few intrigues. Occasionally, a melon is enough for everyone to eat for a long time, which may be related to the comfortable environment of Australian universities. I hope that children's shoes who intend to apply for Australian universities can also cultivate more sense of responsibility and empathy to maintain such a clean stream. I have basically finished what I want to say. Finally, I wish everyone can find their own way! Come on for the college entrance examination!