Focus on NUS in China
NUS is the abbreviation for the National University of Singapore, the first university of Republic of Singapore. Started in year 1905, the university now has 9 professional colleges, 7 graduate schools, and multiple research institutes and research & development centers. It has 50 majors, and have about 19,000 undergraduate students and 7,000 graduate students. The staff is about 3,000.
NUS has always remained one of the world’s top 50 universities. In the rank of The Times, it ranks the 30th in the world. Also, in Asian only, according to the rank made by some English consultant institute, NUS ranks the 3rd, following only Hong Kong University of Science and Technology(香港科技大学) and the University of Hong Kong(香港大学).
In China, there are over 10 famous key universities that have established cooperation relationship with NUS, including Peking University(北京大学), Tsinghua University(清华大学), Shanghai Jiao Tong University(上海交通大学), Nanjin university(南京大学), Fudan University(复旦大学), Nankai University(南开大学), and Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics(北京航空航天大学). Also, by cooperating with famous schools like Stanford University, University of Pennsylvania, Fudan University, Indian Institute of Technology, NUS has 7 overseas branch campus in America, China, Sweden, India and Israel.
The Chinese students of NUS have achieved a lot. Lan Weiguang(蓝伟光), the authority in biomembrane using and a successful businessman who ranks 75th in the rich list in China, received his Ph.D.’s degree in NUS. Yu Hao(俞皓), the excellent researcher in the genetics of plants who published many articles in world’s famous magazines like Nature, Nature Genetics and Plant Cell, spent 4 years in NUS to obtain his Ph.D.. Lin Guangru(林光如), member of the Chinese people’s political consultative conference, was an EMBA graduate of the business school of NUS.
NUS takes an open attitude towards Chinese students. Compared with other universities in Europe and America, there are several advantages that NUS has. Firstly, NUS is ran by the Singapore government, which pays a lot of attention to teaching and research and development. The ratio of GDP that has been put into this category is 3%, which is pretty large among all countries. Secondly, NUS is a place where several cultures coexist. Students here students have the opportunity to know about the culture of China, of Malaysia, of India and of the western countries, which greatly widens up students’ horizons. Being a small country, Singapore has to accept globalization. According to NUS’s principal, Shi Chunfeng(施春风), there is ample competition in an open environment, and the species will become more and more in number and increasingly stronger. The same rules apply for universities. If it is conservative and closed, then there will be few challenges for the faculty and the students, and it will not improve.
There are over 7,000 oversea students in NUS, and more than 3,000 of them are from China. Over 60% of all its graduates are from abroad. Also, teachers are from Singapore, China, Isreal, the Middle East, and Africa. NUS sets little limit to the minds of its students. It encourages its students to development new ideas, and helps realize their potentials. During an interview with its principal, Shi Chunfeng(施春风), the word that appeared most frequently was ‘creation’. People from different cultural backgrounds come and exchange ideas with each other. By working in teams, new ideas are born and get developed, which also makes the school more competitive.
Edited by Amy Wang from Daxue Consultant China
Credit Photo: Baidu
