Pennsylvania State University? Big? It is one of the largest universities in America, 10. At present, there are more than 80,000 students, including 4 100 full-time teachers and researchers. In addition to the main campus, there are 24 branch schools and 4 specialized schools in Pennsylvania. The school's policy is to pay equal attention to teaching, scientific research and social services, and to be down-to-earth, with the goal of cultivating first-class engineers, economists, teachers and business managers in the United States. Generally speaking, although the strength of this school is not good compared with Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other first-class universities in the United States, it has gradually formed its own characteristics in the development of 150.
Pennsylvania State University is based on the actual needs of the industry, agriculture, finance, education and other industries in the state and even the whole country, and does not blindly pursue it? Tall, elegant and sharp? Emphasize that the teaching content is suitable for the needs of social development, focusing on applied scientific research projects closely related to industrial and agricultural production. Pennsylvania is an important producing area of milk, so the school opened the earliest undergraduate ice cream major in the United States to teach dairy manufacturing technology. Pennsylvania's agriculture is developed, and the school takes the lead in offering undergraduate and postgraduate courses in agriculture to train senior agricultural technical personnel. Pennsylvania once ranked first in the United States in coal production, and the school established a huge coal fuel laboratory. Pittsburgh, not far from the school, used to be a steel production base in the United States, so the school set up a smoke research center to study pollution control.
In order to promote the transformation of scientific research achievements, Penn State University built an innovative science and technology park covering an area of 130 mu in 195. According to our strong industrial technology, we decided to take the subject of materials as the leader to promote the development of other disciplines. This makes the school enjoy a high reputation in the fields of materials science, agricultural biology, meteorology, acoustic engineering and applied chemistry, and it is also the main source of technical income after the transformation of scientific research results.
Distance education enjoys a high reputation.
Because Penn State University is far away from big cities, almost all of them are full-time students when they start school. In order to let more people have the opportunity to go to university, especially graduate students, the school took the lead in setting up correspondence courses and teaching agricultural technology courses in the United States as early as 1892, which is a pioneer in the development of distance education in American universities. In recent ten years, Pennsylvania State University has also been at the forefront of American universities in using Internet technology to carry out distance education. Built in 1998? World campus? , is one of the few in the United States with a considerable scale? Virtual university? One.
The characteristics of distance education in Pennsylvania State University are:
1. Strict enrollment and formal management. Many distance education students can register at will, and the school is loosely managed, while Pennsylvania State University has exactly the same standards for enrolling distance education students as ordinary students. This year, about 654.38+00000 people signed up for distance education in this school. After screening, the school only sent admission notices to more than 3,000 people. Once admitted, the management will be the same as that of the formal students, and the teaching requirements and treatment will be exactly the same as those of the formal students, and the same diploma will be issued after graduation.
2. Full-time teachers and professional textbooks. Many schools do not have full-time distance education teachers, but use ordinary face-to-face course textbooks, and the teaching content is basically videos of face-to-face courses. Penn State University has full-time teachers engaged in distance education, and the teaching content is also special teaching materials and teaching videos designed according to the characteristics of distance education. The audio-visual production of distance education courses in this school has always enjoyed a high reputation in the United States for its technical level and content quality.
3. At present, there are only 30 subjects in distance education courses offered by Penn State University, but these are the strongest majors in the school and are very suitable for distance education.
4. Penn State University requires distance education students, no matter where they are, to receive face-to-face lectures for three months every year, or to come to the school or be guided by the teachers of the school.
5. Take the lead in developing distance education research. Since 1995? Distance education innovation plan? Scientific research projects, organize forces to design and implement distance teaching while conducting research. At present, it is the first time to carry out such a large-scale distance education research in the United States.