The Moment of Dream Come True

The Harvard's teaching method was very impressive.  In Taiwan, the English course is usually divided into a few types of classes based on functions, such as grammar, conversation, writing, listening, vocabulary...etc, and that's the way we were so comfortable with. Here at Harvard, it integrated four skills together: listening, speaking, reading and writing.  In other words, the course was designed to be content-oriented.  The biggest difference of English classes between Taiwan and Harvard was we had tons and tons of assignment here.   We were required to read a lot of assignment or do research before we went to class.  Besides reading, we had to look up the vocabularies on our own, to annotate, and to come up with a few questions.  Everybody was so stressed out.  I stayed up late and got up early to catch up with my homework but still couldn't finish all of them.  At first, I was kind of disappointed, thinking that "Is this the English program I want?"  I would really like to work on listening and speaking skills instead of spending most of my time doing research and studying.   I would like to learn something more practical like TV news or newspaper or something.



I just finished my stressful graduate study at Brandeis.  I desperatedly wanted to have a relaxed summer vacation to enjoy learning English language, not jumped into another even more challenging program.  Oh no!  I complained a lot.  I felt depressed Sometimes.  A lot of times, I just didn't want to do my homework until the last minute.  When time went on, I gradually found the classes were so valuable, and started to appreciate the hard work and the great efforts the educators and instructors had put into in our classes.  We had visiting activities once a week and lectures twice a week.  With regard to visiting activities, we went to Treedom Trail, JFK museum, The Science Senter and The Peabody museum..etc, during which we were required to do research and class discussion before and after our visiting. 

Am I passionate about English? Sometimes I am confused about the reason why I’ve been studying English so hard. Do I consider English language as a tool which might give a boost to my future career, or do I treat English as an entertaining value, loving it with all my heart? I really don’t know. I only know that when I feel upset, stressed or depressed, studying English at a café can comfort my anxiety and sadness, making me forget all my sorrows. I only know that if I have a laid-back afternoon when I don’t have to work or to suffer from the heavy burden of schoolwork, I’d love to go to a coffee shop to enjoy my time there, studying English with a great cup of coffee and with soft music. That is my favorite thing to do. Learning English makes me feel fulfilled and delighted.

Most importantly, the most valuable lesson I learned at Harvard was to have exceeded the English language itself. The greatest benefit that will last my lifetime will be the attitude to approach knowledge. We’re required to do research: to read, to annotate, and to listen to the materials online and then come to class to discuss the work. This Top-Down learning method at Harvard is vastly different from the way I learned in Taiwan, where students are used to coming to class and waiting for the teacher to feed his or her knowledge to them. “Whatever you can do yourselves, you have to do it on your own,” said Liane Jeschull, my workshop instructor. I have learned how to absorb knowledge proactively, instead of passively. It is significantly important, and it will be a great influence for the rest of my life. Be prepared and come to discuss!  

My research paper at Harvard University

Introduction

        The recent news that shocked Taiwan’s society and has stirred up fierce debates in this island is that the university admission rate has hit a record high of over 100%, which means any student can be admitted into one of the universities even if they get zero score during the examination (The China Post, “University admission rate hits record high of over 100%”). An increasing number of people have harshly criticized the admission committee and have called for a reform for the Taiwan’s higher education, arguing that an excessive number of universities are the root cause of the low quality of college students. Having experienced graduate studies in both Taiwan and the US, I believe that high admission rate is just one of the numerous factors that lead to low quality of the higher education. Except for admission, we should look into causes deeply in a social and cultural context. This study will scrutinize three major differences between the US and Taiwan’s higher education: time to choose a college major, the teaching and learning styles, and the students’ learning attitudes. By means of comparison of the higher education systems between these two countries, the objectives of the study aim to make suggestions to Taiwan’s college students and to Taiwan’s higher education reform.