Cornell grad here, comp-sci department. The big problem with foreign grad students who cannot speak english is they then have a tendency to jump into their native language during office hours.
At Cornell, we'd have office hours discussions evolve partially or wholly into chinese or russian -- and all the english students were scratching their heads. This should never happen.
office hours are not a private discussion -- they are group discussions with 1 TA and 5-6 students all trying to use a very precious timeslot to figure something out. All convos should be in English.
This is good policy. Chinese students in particular seem to have terrible english language skills. An American with the same communication skills would never be admitted to a flagship university for undergrad, let alone grad school.
I'm not sure how these Chinese students are gaming the system to get admitted, but I'm glad someone is finally doing something about it.
>This is good policy. Chinese students in particular seem to have terrible english language skills. An American with the same communication skills would never be admitted to a flagship university for undergrad, let alone grad school.
Surely there are better ways of dealing with this than banning an entire country? A standardized English test doesn't seem too hard to administer, for instance, and would have the benefit of being applicable to other countries.
>I'm not sure how these Chinese students are gaming the system to get admitted, but I'm glad someone is finally doing something about it.
So you're not even sure what the problem is, but you're okay with banning it? That dumber than banning them because they might be CCP spies or whatever. At least that vaguely makes sense and there are isn't really a mitigation (there's no standardized tests for non-CCP spies, for instance).
What about this policy has anything to do with English language skills? And how is this “good policy” if it penalizes important next-generation researchers even when they speak English well? I am not denying your observation re: English language skills among Chinese graduate students—it’s just unclear what this solves that checking for English language skills during the live video interview stage does not.
Because its basically a reinterpretation of the Family Guy "Skin color palette" meme. Instead, its "how do you speak american English?"
Admittedly, Ive also been subject to this, especially when I deal with tech support. I do have a pretty negative response when I hear an Indian-English accent. I'm reasonably sure I will be apologized at 4+ times, ignored what I say, restate what they say, "do the needful", and likewise.
As an American who is a current grad student at Purdue this sucks. I've met great grad students from all around and it's sad that these exact sorts of really smart people have had increasing difficulty in coming to the US and staying here.
It would be akin to admitting German grad students in Physics in 1935. At some point Americans will need to realize that realpolitik dictates you don’t educate your enemy at scale as a policy matter, lest we discover the hard way how this will go wrong.
In 1935, Albert Einstein relocated to Princeton permanently, so it's certainly an odd choice of a year in this context.
Random graduate students won't work on classified projects. The vast majority of non-classified studies will not have any impact on national security for years to come. It's unclear what the actual risks are, beyond the general distrust of foreigners.
This may come as a surprise to you but Albert Einstein was Jewish.
An interesting extension of this hypothetical scenario comparison would be one where America further restricted educational opporunities for Chinese students but made exceptions for Chinese students with Tibetan or Uyghur ethnicities.
China as the enemy is a fabricated narrative, bc culturally we seem to have a need to have another cold war, we need a "bad guy"
in reality theyre just economic rivals. But thebmn again so are the EU.
in terms of zone of political influence the competition isnt anything crazy (except for the poor taiwanese caught in the middle) and there is no clash of political ideaologies
In my experience Chinese in China don't typically see the US as an enemy. Its a weird framing for them
>"The top uniformed soldier in China, chairman of China's Central Military Commission, stated that war with the United States is inevitable," Coffman said. "That is the first time China has made that statement publicly."
>> "The top uniformed soldier in China, chairman of China's Central Military Commission, stated that war with the United States is inevitable," Coffman said.
Do we have something better than some English-language hearsay from five years ago? I tried looking for more on this and found nothing.
I did discover that Xu Qiliang died last June. I doubt he's going to have much influence going forward.
The flip-side of enrolling your enemies is that they form lifelong friendships with both the local students and the country as a whole. It makes it a lot harder to hate a country once you get to know them.
Umm. The best physics work in the world was being done by European academics and admitting them then and earlier was perhaps the best thing that happened both for American science & tech as well as the ability to wage war.
This is sad but not unexpected. It’s a huge boon for China, since that talent is much more likely to stay in China now. Everyone thought Trump was a Russian mole, but increasingly it is the Chinese who are benefiting from his policies.
At Cornell, we'd have office hours discussions evolve partially or wholly into chinese or russian -- and all the english students were scratching their heads. This should never happen.
office hours are not a private discussion -- they are group discussions with 1 TA and 5-6 students all trying to use a very precious timeslot to figure something out. All convos should be in English.
I'm not sure how these Chinese students are gaming the system to get admitted, but I'm glad someone is finally doing something about it.
Surely there are better ways of dealing with this than banning an entire country? A standardized English test doesn't seem too hard to administer, for instance, and would have the benefit of being applicable to other countries.
>I'm not sure how these Chinese students are gaming the system to get admitted, but I'm glad someone is finally doing something about it.
So you're not even sure what the problem is, but you're okay with banning it? That dumber than banning them because they might be CCP spies or whatever. At least that vaguely makes sense and there are isn't really a mitigation (there's no standardized tests for non-CCP spies, for instance).
Admittedly, Ive also been subject to this, especially when I deal with tech support. I do have a pretty negative response when I hear an Indian-English accent. I'm reasonably sure I will be apologized at 4+ times, ignored what I say, restate what they say, "do the needful", and likewise.
Probably money. Foreign students will almost always pay sticker price.
On the contrary, they pay the international student price, which is much higher.
Random graduate students won't work on classified projects. The vast majority of non-classified studies will not have any impact on national security for years to come. It's unclear what the actual risks are, beyond the general distrust of foreigners.
An interesting extension of this hypothetical scenario comparison would be one where America further restricted educational opporunities for Chinese students but made exceptions for Chinese students with Tibetan or Uyghur ethnicities.
in reality theyre just economic rivals. But thebmn again so are the EU.
in terms of zone of political influence the competition isnt anything crazy (except for the poor taiwanese caught in the middle) and there is no clash of political ideaologies
In my experience Chinese in China don't typically see the US as an enemy. Its a weird framing for them
>"The top uniformed soldier in China, chairman of China's Central Military Commission, stated that war with the United States is inevitable," Coffman said. "That is the first time China has made that statement publicly."
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/03/11/china-declare...
Would you say the same thing about Russia, Is that a fabricated narrative? Why or why not?
Do we have something better than some English-language hearsay from five years ago? I tried looking for more on this and found nothing.
I did discover that Xu Qiliang died last June. I doubt he's going to have much influence going forward.
Claiming that China isn’t a danger to democracy and doesn’t have expansionist desires is insane. Look no further than their border with India.
What, the one where they stage battles in which gunpowder weapons are prohibited?
When's the last time it moved?
Fortunately for us -- very fortunately -- we found a way to accommodate them and keep them on our side.
1: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/09/22/how-ivy-leagu...