介绍:
John: Are those popular college majors really as good as they sound? Recently, a list of the top ten deceptive or in Chinese kengdie majors has been making its rounds on Weibo. Users have summed up the meaning of kengdie majors, majors which sound really awesome, but disappoint student after student after they initially enroll or after they spent four years and actually graduate. So, let’s take a look at this list, what are the top ten kengdie majors?
ZHY: We’re looking at some pretty popular majors: computer technology, medicine, mathematics, chemical technology, communication engineering, law, art, a whole bunch of subjects that make me wonder are we just put much covering?
John: All, everything?
ZHY: Yes, everything, so you know, it’s a little confusing, but let’s look at some of the details then. As agreed with one of our listeners Yancy , I think that how you pronounce it: Law is definitely a big kengdie major for him or her, and a lot of people are saying the same because it seems like with the rapid expansion of enrollment that Chinese universities have carried out in the last decade, certain coveted degrees have become vastly devalued now, and law is one of them.
Liu Yan: And also another popular kengdie major is medicine, and according to some netizens they say if you choose medicine then basically everyone in your life becomes guinea pigs, you know, but I have to say if you take a look at all these top ten kengdie majors, the overwhelming feeling that I got is that people are just getting lazier and lazier, they find reasons to complain, no matter what.
John: Yeah, yeah, I do have to wonder if a lot of it… I mean because as you guys said we’re looking at pretty much, almost every single possibility when it comes to the major, I do have to wonder to what degree, is it the people just like, you know, like just sucks and so does my major, or it was you know they really were going in with pretty high expectations, and they found that life is just harder than they imagine it would be.
ZHY: I think maybe they went in with really high expectations and also very limited information with what kind of content that they’re going to be learning and studying, it seems. A lot of the times people as a fresh graduate out of high school, they only look at the title, they haven’t really found of much about what the course is about, and then they just, you know, register for whatever is their available for them.
LY: Yeah, I think it’s possibly one of the explanations. And some other people maybe they do have some basic information about those majors, and they possibly don’t want to choose one of these so called hot majors. However, due to parental pressure or peer pressure, they go to those areas anyway, so I think that’s also one of those reasons.
John: Well, also I mean I think Zhou Heyang with kind of pointing at this before but really has lots due just major selection in general. Number one, you have to choose it before you’re even sure who you are or what you want to do. Number two, you are always going to be constrained. Even if… by your Gaokao score… even if its really high score, if you get a high score that means you really should, you almost have to go into, you know, a high score major. If you go into a lower major then you know, you just loose lot of face.
LY: And people will think what’s wrong with you? That’s wasted, you know.
John: Must be an idiot savant or something
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ZHY: But also I think it has a lot to do with the quality of teaching as well, because a lot of people are really disappointed with the teaching that they get after they entered university, and again I think something to do with the fastest expansion of universities and not keeping the infrastructure and the teaching staff, you know, up to the standard.
John: Yeah and no actual, real reform of the Gaokao system unfortunately.
