I Am the President of the University

  Chapter 493 Troubles of the Chinese Society for Materials Research

   (Don't look at it, wait until 2 o'clock and look at it)

   (Don't look at it, wait until 2 o'clock and look at it)

  ……

  Peking University Yuanpei General Education Curriculum System

  1. It has not been established since its inception. This is also an important reason why it was not envisaged at the beginning of the establishment but has not been realized so far, which affects the effect of this experiment. The purpose of this experiment was to establish a general education system similar to that of the top American liberal arts colleges, but after more than ten years of operation, this goal was not achieved. You can find many commentary articles on Peking University Yuanpei General Education on the Internet, with mixed reviews. But in a word, this experiment was not successful.

2. Yuanpei College of Peking University focuses on general education, but its current training model is not to offer general education courses by itself, but to adopt a combination of general education methods. Whether this method is good or not remains to be discussed, but at present domestic It is difficult to set up independent general education courses in the educational environment of China. This may be the "experimental failure" mentioned upstairs.

The so-called platter-style general education means that students of Yuanpei College can take all the professional courses in Peking University. Therefore, Yuanpei does not offer general education courses, but students can freely combine professional courses from different departments to achieve general education. The result of education. In the sophomore year, students are divided into majors. Students can freely choose any major in Peking University as their major (of course, the right to change directions and take other professional courses), or choose Yuanpei’s special majors: such as PPE (Politics) , Economics and Philosophy), Foreign Languages ​​and Foreign History, Paleontology, Integrated Science, etc. As the name suggests, these majors combine the relevant courses of various faculties and departments as your compulsory courses.

  This century is a banner of undergraduate education and teaching reform. Yuanpei College has been exploring a thick foundation and wide-calibre talent training model for 13 years. It is the first batch of domestic colleges and universities to test the waters of general education. The accidents, frustrations, embarrassments and even controversies encountered by "Yuan Pei" in this talent experiment fully reflect the difficulty and pain of general knowledge.

  Beijing University Yuanpei is the earliest and relatively mature model in the domestic general education reform. Now general education is being rolled out in various universities, but the current results are not particularly good-but at least one step has been taken.

3. According to the talent training plan of Yuanpei College, after enrolling, freshmen can theoretically choose any course offered by the whole school. They can listen to whatever they want. The course study plan is all made by themselves; from the sophomore year, students can follow You can freely choose the direction of study for your own interests, and there is no limit in theory.

  "Spiritual freedom, academic freedom, and learning freedom." After almost all students enter Yuanpei, their first feeling is "freedom", but after that, most people will start to be "lost."

  A student who enrolled in 2004 once published an article on the Internet complaining about Yuanpei’s "free system." For example, the "tutorial system" that should be responsible for tutoring students to choose courses and majors has limited effect. In fact, the freshmen of Yuanpei's 04 freshmen can't even get a course plan of the department and must go to the academic affairs department of each department. "Look at it."

  Compared with these trivial matters, the freedom of course selection has become a bigger obstacle-you can listen to the classes in the whole school, but what do you listen to?

  At Peking University, the undergraduate course plan is mainly divided into two parts: professional courses and general elective courses. Generally speaking, professional courses are more difficult than general elective courses. It is envisaged that after any Yuanpei student is in his second year of sophomore year and chooses his or her major, the courses of other faculties previously selected can replace the general elective courses, and they can graduate after completing the credits.

  For students, regulations such as these are tantamount to the shackles of "free treatment": choose courses according to their interests, and once the exam results are not satisfactory, they will lose a certain degree of freedom when choosing a major.

  Many Yuanpei “comers” have personally experienced the process of compromising to “unfreedom”. Zhang Wanting, a student of Yuanpei's law major in Peking University's 03 level, told reporters that in the first few years of Yuanpei's implementation, grade points were not a matter of importance. "Most of the students in the 02 and 03 levels choose courses according to their own interests. Difficult classes were a trend at the time.” But since then, the grade point orientation has become heavier and heavier.

  The existence of the "Grade Point" standard still makes students unable to let go of course selection.

  Wenjie Zhou, was admitted to Yuanpei College in 2008 and is currently the class teacher of Yuanpei College, Peking University. What he observed is that there are fewer and fewer students in the college who choose courses based on a wide range of interests, and many freshmen have a strong plan as soon as they enter the school. For example, in the first semester of the freshman year, the 13th grade freshmen choose courses in the fields of economics, management, mathematics, politics, economy and philosophy, and there are no courses with a particularly large subject span.

Xu Chongren explained that the biggest difference between Yuanpei and various schools and departments is that traditional professional schools can develop themselves without any external force, while Yuanpei often requires schools to push from the back and continue to formulate special specialties that apply to Yuanpei. policy. "Professors need to do research and need their own graduate students, so they must rely on professional colleges and departments, and Yuanpei alone cannot do it alone."

  Zhou Wenjie said frankly that the "freedom" provided by Yuanpei College to students is still a kind of "negative freedom" in a sense. "Students have to take the risk to choose courses without knowing what is going on in this major, and they have to judge whether these courses can touch the core issues of the major." Especially for freshmen, the psychological pressure is all of a sudden. It came up ~www.wuxiahere.com~ Not long ago, a post on the BBS of Peking University was "fired". The poster stated that he submitted an application for extension of the school system, but was rejected by the school's academic affairs office, which delayed his plan for undergraduate study.

  Not long ago, a post on the BBS of Peking University became "hot". The poster stated that he submitted an application for extension of the school system, but was rejected by the school's academic affairs office, which delayed his plan for undergraduate study.

  This student is Lu Weicong of Yuanpei's 10th grade. After completing the mathematics major, he hopes to study mathematics and computer science, so he applied for an extension. According to Yuanpei's teaching plan, students enjoy a flexible academic system and can complete their undergraduate education within 3 to 6 years. But the reason for the school's academic affairs not to postpone is that the student's graduation credits have been completed.

  After coordination, Lu Weicong's application was finally approved. However, this matter still caused follow-up discussions within Yuanpei: Yuanpei did not get rid of the trouble of the "dual track system", and some of the college's teaching systems did not receive effective administrative protection at the school level.

  Although the "dual track system" has not completely disappeared over time, Xu Chongren said that Yuanpei College is a model that is beneficial to the improvement of undergraduate education based on the diversified source of students. Yuanpei’s reform addresses two prominent problems in higher education: students’ premature entry into professional studies leads to narrow knowledge; most students blindly choose majors, and there is a gap after learning.

  (End of this chapter)