As part of the Bachelor Program at WFI - Ingolstadt School of Management, I spent the fifth semester at Xiamen University in Fujian province, China.
In the following, I briefly comment on the application procedure, provide some guidance to the preparations, give an overview and assessment of the overall living situation and the courses I took at XMU. After the application process at my home university, I had to apply on a website of Xiamen University as well . Therefore I uploaded some documents like the application form, a recommendation letter, a photo of my passport and some additional information for incoming exchange students. The application was handed in to the International Affairs Office at School of Management of XMU. I was informed about the acceptance in-between some weeks by receiving a student packages from Xiamen University. At this stage, one can already apply for housing on campus of XMU which I didn’t do, because I wanted to live off the campus to learn more about Chinese culture and be part of Chinas daily life.
The Overseas Students Affairs Office (OSAO) prepares an orientation day the weekend before the lectures starts, where they informed us about all the important things according to the semester and the university. For the course selection we got support from the International Office to sign up for the courses we selected from the course list, which was sent to us in the first week of lectures. After finding an apartment in the close Siming living area, we got a Chinese mobile phone number and opened a Chinese Bank account which both can be done on campus. I recommend to arrive a view days earlier in order to finish all these organizational things before the semester starts.
The area near the campus, where I lived, is quiet busy with numerous supermarkets, restaurants, cafes and shops. I shared an apartment with a friend from Germany and we both payed 2,000 RMB for our rooms which is around 260€. On the campus itself they also have nearly everything like supermarkets, several canteens, cafes, sports and activity centers, a gym (quiet obsolete), a huge rooftop swimming pool and a swimming hall, basketball courts, tennis courts, a golf driving range, a giant sports stadium and last but not least the beautiful lake in the middle of the campus which is surrounded by a lot of palm trees to chill.
The School of Management buildings are close to the south gate of campus which is one bus stop away from my apartment.
I was happy with the choice of courses I made, because they all were quiet interesting and nearly every professor spoke fluent english. The courses are taught very differently compared to Germany because they are mostly organized in smaller classes of 20 to 40 students depending on the course. The university also offers several Chinese language courses on different levels for exchange students which I really recommend. The grading
consist, depending on the course, of a number of part grades like midterm exams, presentations, assignments and attendance. The weight of the specific grades in-between a course vary from subject to subject. All together I took eight courses which was quiet a lot but manageable with some effort. To check with my home university, if I get credits for all the courses, I had to contact every chair in Germany via email. Therefore it would have been helpful to receive the course list some weeks before the semester begins.
To sum it up, I enjoyed my exchange semester in Xiamen a lot. I think the idea of an exchange semester is to give students the opportunity to make some experiences abroad, not just to study, but also learn a lot about different cultures, different food, different people and a different country.
