My Taïwanese University: Chinese Culture University

University name / Location / Short history / Housing

- Chinese Culture University (CCU)

- Located on the Yang Ming Mountain which allows to have a very pleasant living environment and when the weather is clear a beautiful view on Shilin, a Taïpei’s district

- Chinese Culture University was founded by Chang Chi-Yun in 1962 under the name “Far East University”, and later called “College of Chinese Culture” by the late ROC President Chiang Kai-Shek. One of its special features is its library which is one of the top most famous in Taïwan. Indeed, it contains more than one million and four hundred thousand books including seven thousand different kinds of journals in various languages, and nearly 74,000 pieces of audio-video material.

Welcome and integration

After some administrative documents to fill, we were offered to visit the most important parts of universities. We made this visit with Syuan-Wei, a CCU student who lived in Switzerland for six years and was responsible for integrating French students. He was very willing and helpful in finding our classrooms, using the fastest means of transportation and finding an affordable hairdresser.

Class content

It was asked to build a timetable with a minimum of twelve hours. Finally, we organized a timetable of fifteen hours for the first three days of the week. The university being far from home, we wanted to limit travel time and enjoy our long weekends to visit Taipei in depth, travel inside Taiwan and have time for our internship.

Among our courses, two of them caught our attention: Artificial Intelligence in Business Application and Investment. The first was animated by a very dynamic teacher, the second was very dense and interesting.

Cultural differences in the classroom

In class, students follow a lazy attitude almost shocking. They are not disturbed when they arrive later, they can eat in class but also look at their phone. These behaviours, which will shock anyone who has mainly studied in France, are common in Taiwan. Apart from that, working conditions are very similar to those in Western countries.

Student interaction, social life, sports, clubs...etc.

In contrast to the French universities, the campus life is very developed. They often organize food’s stands where we can find street food. They also have a lot of sports field and swimming pools everywhere on the campus.