It's autumn again, and as a traditional Chinese, there will always be all kinds of thoughts haunting my heart in such a season, howeverFor students who have dreams and travel to study abroad, autumn is the beginning of the season.
As an "old-timer" who has six years of experience studying abroad and is still on the way to study for a PhD, I would also like to share my personal thoughts and experiences with my friends who are preparing to set sail, in order to avoid trouble and prepare in advance, and also to confirm the journey of this journey.
Cherry blossoms in the spring of BGI.
Universities in the United States are the same as in China for four years, and the dual degree program and the combined bachelor's and master's programs are generally five to five and a half years.
For the usualThe four-year undergraduate program is a detailed introduction for those who are planning to study abroad.
Four years of undergraduate, generally referred to as undergraduate education, I think can be thisThe four years are divided into two parts: the general education stage of the freshman and sophomore years and the professional study stage of the junior and senior years.
Let's start with the general education stage
Unlike domestic undergraduates, American undergraduates will not let you decide on a major when you enter college, and you may be asked to fill in the major you want to enter when you apply to schools, but this does not mean that you will enter this major when you are admitted.
Compared with the mode of admission according to the major when filling in the college entrance examination in domestic universities, American universities seem to hope that students can position themselves in the freshman and sophomore years of study to find the major that they are suitable for and interested in.
Therefore, in the preparation stage of the application, especially in the writing stage of the PS, the description of the professional aspiration or the description of the ability or origin of the individual's professional field may not necessarily make the applicant favored by the admission officerThis is very different from the application for a master's or doctoral degree.
In their freshman and sophomore years, all students are required to take compulsory courses in general mathematics and cultural diversity.
The compulsory courses of general mathematics refer to calculus, basic classical physics, basic chemistry, etc., and the cultural diversity courses are generally history, humanities and social sciences exploration courses and language courses.
For our international students, there are generally two English courses, and most of them choose to complete them in their freshman year.
In addition to these courses, the choices of different students will have to be different.
I mentioned that deciding on one's major before applying does not necessarily give you extra points for your applicationHowever, if a student is able to decide on a major earlier, then he or she can make a reasonable plan as early as possible when arranging his freshman and sophomore years.
That's right, in addition to the regular general culture courses, the freshman and sophomore students also have to choose the courses they want to take according to their personal needs for their future majors.
There is an important point here:Majors in U.S. universities require students to apply to relevant majors between the end of their freshman year and the end of their sophomore year, and the department of each major will determine whether you are suitable for admission to the major based on your grades in certain courses during your freshman and sophomore years.
For example, if a student submits his or her preference for a physics major in the application stage during the college application stage, and in his freshman and sophomore years, if he does not get a satisfactory grade in the introductory courses of the physics department, such as classical mechanics. Then the Department Office of the Department of Physics has the right to refuse the student's admission to the physics major.
Therefore, entering the school does not mean that your efforts are over, it is important to arrange yourself reasonably and create an introductory course schedule plan for your favorite major.
At the same time, I think that the freshman and sophomore years are relatively tolerant of students, which means that it is much easier to achieve full grade points in the courses of the first and second years.
After entering the junior and senior years,
According to my experience, all courses will be arranged by the department within the major, and these courses are generally unique courses to their own major, and at most they intersect with similar majors.
For example,My major is materials science and engineering, and my junior and senior years are generally courses such as material failure analysis, which are only for students in my major, but sometimes I also take interdisciplinary courses such as CAD drawing, which are in demand for many engineering majors.
At this stage, my experience may be more applicable to engineering students, as the way in which students are trained varies greatly from major to major.
As an engineering student, in your junior year, you will find that your usual classmates are finally acquaintances, and you will finally feel like classmates in a domestic university (of course, the communication and closeness are much lower than those in domestic universities).
Engineering juniors, in your junior year, in addition to the regular courses, there will be a whole year of experimental courses.
Normally, there will be a lab leader, who is the teacher of this year-long series, and all the students will be randomly divided into groups with no too many people in each group, as I was in a group of 5. This is to allow students to gradually enter the professional field.
After entering your senior year, as a senior student, you will start to prepare for your graduation project, generally by finding a professor as your mentor, and then start working together and making your graduation project.
If you are a student who wants to apply for a master's degree or a doctorate (your own major), you should try to participate in as many activities related to your major as possible during your junior and senior years, you can go to the professor's lab to do miscellaneous work, participate in various projects that seem to be tall but have a low entry threshold, or take advantage of the vacation to go to related companies for short-term internships.
For undergraduate study abroad applications,I think it can be divided into two groups of people in general:
The first type is planned for a long time, and arrangements have been made for studying abroad very early.
I know a lot of classmates, they or their families, at the beginning of high school or even before the start of high school have plans to study abroad, this kind of people either go to the United States to study in high school, and then apply to enter American universities after taking the SAT in the United States (SAT cannot be counted as the American college entrance examination, it still depends on the application), or enter the domestic international high school to take the domestic SAT or complete the national high school entrance examination in a regular high school and graduate early from the domestic high school, and prepare for the SAT by themselves.
No matter how it is arranged, after taking the SAT, students need to apply for undergraduate schools.
The second group is people who have the idea of studying abroad late, or even decide to study abroad after the college entrance examination.
Generally speaking, for such students, SAT study, test preparation, registration and school application are relatively late, so many students will choose to enter the college in the United States (of course, the college also has to go through the application process, but it is much simpler), and then carry out two years of general study in the college, and transfer application before the end of the sophomore year to directly transfer schools and majors.
However, college applications generally require TOEFL or IELTS, and the same is true for transfer applications.
Such a plan is usually to graduate with an associate's degree at the end of two years of college, but they will graduate with the same degree and academic qualifications as other students, and there will be no difference.
These are two paths with different starting points but the same end and result.
No matter what kind of students they are, they all have to face the hurdle of application, but some take the SAT four-year undergraduate system, and some take the TOEFL IELTS 2+2 system.
There are some preparations that are needed in order to cope with the application, and here are a few tips that I find useful:
1. Understand the style of the school you are applying to in advance.
For example, his school philosophy and school motto, or through the post bar and the seniors on the Internet to understand the school atmosphere and the general preferences of the teachers, you can ask the seniors how they show themselves in the PS when applying to impress the admission officer.
2. Participation in social activities.
Different from the professional activities or scientific research experience required by master's and doctoral students, when applying for the undergraduate level, applicants can show that they are an excellent candidate with cultural characteristics and willing to be exposed to humanities information by explaining their participation in various social activities.
You can describe yourself as a volunteer for an event, or as a promoter and participant of a traditional culture, in short, to make the admissions officer think that you are a very social and cultural person.
3. Prepare for language exams.
Although American universities do not place too much emphasis on the results of various language tests, all schools have hard and fast requirements for language scores.
At the same time, a high score is the best proof of personal ability. Therefore, it is important to prepare and arrange the language test properly to get a good score.
There are many factors that influence the decision of the admissions officer in the application process, such as high school grades, language test scores, personal ability and personality charisma (the purpose of participating in various social activities mentioned above), howeverOne of the most important pieces that cannot be ignored is the personal self-recommendation letter, which is generally called a personal statement, and is replaced by PS below.
The reason why it is important is that PS is a communication channel between admissions officers and reviewers and applicants, or these admission officers prefer to understand what kind of person you are from the words you write yourself, rather than just data and a simple statement of your resume by lines of text.
Therefore, I would like to present here a few of my personal thoughts on the key points of PS writing: emotional, simplified, and artistic.
EmotionalIt means that you need to express a strong will to the reader as you write, as if this is the only school you have chosen, and you have longed for everything about this school.
In this regard, the aforementioned knowledge of the school climate and the experience of the senior students will be your help, of courseIf you can make a connection to an aspect of your life (e.g., a relative's past, your childhood, etc.) to the school, please mention it appropriately in the article, this will bring you closer to each other.
There is no such thing as fate in foreign countries, but they attribute it to fate, and you can show your "bond" with the school in a sensational way.
I can say that I was disgusted when I read the PS I wrote myself, but it was this PS that got me into the school I wanted to go to.
For the sake of a good university, let go of your reserve, there are not many people who see it anyway.
StreamlinedIt's also a very important piece.
Each school has different requirements for PS, but their length requirements for PS are generally between 800 and 1000 words.
It seems like a lot, but in fact, it is less than one page of content in word.
Therefore, it is very important to express all your content as perfectly as possible within the limited requirements.
In general, I recommend that applicants use the following methods: brain storm map, outline, write the first draft, revise, and finalize the draft.
The so-called brain storm map is an idea map, you can write "PS of a certain school" in the middle of a blank piece of paper, and then connect it to write the ideas and ideas you have in mind, and then scatter these ideas to refine them to derive more ideas.
This is a common way of thinking outside the box in American classrooms.
After that, applicants can pick out the ideas that they feel are usable, form an outline in the order of personal arrangement, and start writing PS around the outline.
After completing the first draft, adjust and revise the grammar, words, and sentence structure.
At this stage, you can try to find an intermediary, similar to adminwrite, to make modifications, polish the article, and also let a professional person replace more professional words for you, so that the quality of the article can be improved.
Finally, complete the proofreading, modify the file format if necessary, and finalize the upload.
Artistic processingRefers to the perfection of language arts.
For example, some straightforward and dry words can be written in a humorous way.
You can think of yourself as a narrator, and when you write this PS, you are telling your story to the reader.
Therefore, humorous sentences and a small amount of self-deprecation may bring unexpected benefits, and can also make the reader have a desire to read it, and blindly emphasizing one's own excellence may make the admissions officer feel hehe and skip your PS to read someone else's article.
After all, you're not the only applicant, and he's not responsible for not reading or skipping it.
Friend, this is a sales pitch, not a debriefing.
university of washington,I don't know if any of you have heard of a world-leading academic destination, a historic place that was established in the 19th century, and a beautiful place full of Gothic buildings and famous for its cherry blossoms in April.
As one of the top 20 universities in the United States, BGI has a strong academic team and faculty, and is located in Seattle, which is home to a large number of multinational giant companies, and there is no shortage of funds, which means that BGI has strong hardware to support the various needs of students.
Everyone has a different opinion of the same thing, just as there are a thousand Hamlets in the eyes of a thousand people.
My advice and opinions are based on my own personal experiences and reflections, but they are a summary of my own experiences.
I hope that this experience of mine can bring harvest to readers, and I hope that everyone with dreams can succeed.
Best wishes, friends!