South China City News Interviews with SUSTech Chairman Li Ming
| 03/10/2016

The Different SUSTech Welcomes Different Students

The 1:10 Faculty-student Ratio Places SUSTech among Best Public Universities in the World; SUSTech Graduates in Recent 2 Years Show Excellent Results

In 2013, SUSTech enrolled 20 students in Jiangxi Province, and continued to enroll 40 and 55 students in the Province in the following 2 years. As a result, Jiangxi is now a major supplier of students for SUSTech, which plans to enroll 50 students in the Province this year.
As the pioneer in senior education reform, SUSTech established by Shenzhen Municipal Government has captured great attention from home and abroad since its inception. 5 years has passed and what is SUSTech like today? On March 4, SUSTech Chairman Li Ming received interview from South China City News in Nanchang and told his dream for SUSTech, e.g., making it the world-class university rooted in mainland China. He also handed out his olive branch to outstanding students in Jiangxi Province, “The different SUSTech welcomes different students.”

Faculty:
Over 90% teachers have overseas working experience
“Masters, not buildings, make universities.”
 “Without wonderful faculty and disciplines, there would be no such thing as first-class education and research”, said Li Ming. The quality and performance of professors are very important for students. But it is not easy to develop a strong faculty team because both Chinese and overseas universities are competing heavily to recruit the leading and best professors and other faculty members, which is also a great challenge for SUSTech. 
However, SUSTech is making unmatched efforts to build the super-first-class faculty team in China. According to Li Ming, “Each discipline in SUSTech should have at least one world-leading professor”. At present, SUSTech has contracted and introduced 210 teachers, all of whom have doctoral degrees, over 90% of whom have overseas working experience, and more than 60% of whom have working or education experience in World Top 100 Universities. 

Student source
Students in Jiangxi are diligent and have wonderful foundation and potential
Since the first enrollment in 2013 in Jiangxi, SUSTech has enrolled 115 students in the Province in 3 years. When talking about his impression on Jiangxi students, Li Ming said students from Jiangxi have good foundation and are diligent in studying. As a result, they make faster progress and show greater potential after starting their campus life.
SUSTech uses English textbooks and adopts teaching in English. Besides, only after they finish their studies in Year 2, SUSTech students start to have their majors in different departments. As a result, they have heavy tasks and assignments in their study. “Jiangxi is a major supplier of SUSTech students. Students coming from Jiangxi are quite capable because they adapt to campus life in SUSTech quite well.”,said Li Ming.
The excellent performance of Jiangxi students has been proved by the outstanding results. Jiangxi students from Education Reform Experimental Class graduated earlier and got enrolled in famous universities in Israel as doctoral candidates. And other Jiangxi students were recruited by the famous Kuang-Chi Innovative Technology Ltd. in Shenzhen. Of the first-batch Jiangxi students enrolled in “631 Model” in 2013, some have completed very good academic papers and some have joined top-level discipline competition teams for International Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM) hosted by MIT in US.

Teaching:
1:10 faculty-student ratio places SUSTech among the best public universities in the world
Recent years has seen the enrollment size in SUSTech expanded continuously. By September 2015, the number of on-campus undergraduates had reached 2,100. Many people are worried that, as the enrollment size increases, can SUSTech maintain its small-class teaching?
For this, Li Ming said that running a university is different from running a research institute. If the enrollment size is too small, it would be difficult to conduct activities of student societies and build faculty team in SUSTech. Last year, SUSTech enrolls 935 students in China and plans to enroll 1,000 students this year. And the future enrollment size in the following years will remain at 1,000 students per year.
According to Li Ming, SUSTech will kick off the phase-II campus building, which will be put into use by the second half of 2018. In the future, SUSTech will have about 4,000 on-campus undergraduates and 4,000 postgraduates.
“Please feel assured that SUSTech faculty-student ratio will remain at 1:10, which is the best among the public universities in the world.”, said Li Ming, who promised that SUSTech will enhance its training models of tutor system, academy system and small-class teaching.

Cultivating:
Provide the best platform to cultivate different talents
“I want to apply for SUSTech in its independent enrollment exam. But my parents say SUSTech is a young university and propose I should apply for the established universities. How can I persuade them?”. Many Grade 12 students asked such questions on Baidu Tieba of SUSTech recently.
“Many parents don’t know enough about SUSTech. I want to tell them SUSTech is different from other universities”, said Li Ming. Professors in traditional universities find it difficult to study and consider the personality of all students. But SUSTech professors can do it. SUSTech students can knock open the doors of professors at any time. Since Year 1 in SUSTech, they can participate in research programs of the tutors. The tutors will promptly reply to students asking for solution to problems in emails. And the tutors will, based on the characteristics and personalities of each student, propose a path suitable for their growth that can help them become the talented people in their respective fields after graduation.
“We need students who are diligent, have imagination, creativity, and critical thinking and who are bold enough to voice different ideas. If you wish your children become different and excellent talents, just let them apply for SUSTech. We will provide the best platform for the growth of your children.”,said Li Ming.

Future development
Most first-batch SUSTech graduates study for doctoral candidates in famous overseas universities
Since 2011 when first-batch students were enrolled in SUSTech, the first-batch graduates have graduated from SUSTech. And many people want to know where they are now.
Li Ming said, 80% of the first-batch SUSTech graduates received letters of admission from world-famous universities and chose further studies in overseas countries. For instance, Wang Jiale who graduated earlier was enrolled by Oxford University for doctoral candidate studies. Tong Xiao and Wu Zishan were respectively enrolled by California Institute of Technology and Yale University as the doctoral candidates, who also received full scholarship. Some students have been recruited in the top-notch high-tech enterprises and some students, because they have great entrepreneurship capacity, have chosen the independent innovations and obtained venture capital worth millions of dollars. The first-batch 180 students recruited in the 631 Model approved by the Ministry of Education will graduate in July this year. Dozens of them have received the letters of admission for world-class universities for doctoral-candidate studies. At the same time, they are having more diverse future development. Some will continue the studies in famous Chinese universities. And some will work in the excellent high-tech enterprises and financial institutions. And some will take the entrepreneurship path.
“No matter what choices the students make, we will respect and support them”, said Li Ming. SUSTech aims to cultivate the first-class students. Some students will become first-class famous scientists in certain fields. Some students will probably become excellent entrepreneurs and industrialists. And they are in the first-class level.

Development:
After new schools are established, students of art will be enrolled in SUSTech in the future.
In the past, SUSTech only enrolled students of science or engineering. But in the future, students of art will be enrolled in SUSTech, too.
At present, SUSTech has 12 departments and 17 majors. It will have 6 schools, e.g., School of Science, School of Engineering, School of Life and Health, School of Culture, School of Business, and School of Innovations and Entrepreneurship. It is also planning to build School of Medicine in the means of international collaboration.
SUSTech is designed to build a research-oriented university pillared on sciences and engineering. But why is it planning to build the School of Culture and School of Business? According to Li Ming, these 2 proposed schools are built to improve the structure of knowledge and talents. Many famous scientists in the world have very strong cultural background. Some of them are even great philosophers. Only in this way can they consider the route of scientific development from the perspective of history.
“SUSTech School of Culture and School of Business are different from schools in the composite universities in China. The disciplines are overlapped with technical disciplines. For example, we use big data to analyze historical figures and events, thus combining the modern technologies with traditional cultural studies and knowledge”, said Li Ming. By making such setup, the university hopes to improve the students’ knowledge structure so that they not only know techniques, but also management while having profound background in history and philosophy, etc.
According to Li Ming, it is expected that SUSTech School and Culture and School of Business will enroll postgraduates in the latter part of this year.

SUSTech in the eyes of students:
“You can talk with top professors here.”
Some people say students need courage to decide to study in SUSTech. But in the eyes of on-campus students and graduates, they select SUSTech simply because of the different atmosphere here.
Tong Xiao, one of the first-batch graduates from SUSTech, is now the doctoral candidate in California Institute of Technology, Department of Materials. According to Tong Xiao, “Thanks to the natural language environment of English in my 4-year study in SUSTech, I now don’t have any language problem when studying in California Institute of Technology.”
Wu Zishan, another one of the first-batch graduates from SUSTech, is the doctoral candidate in Yale University, Department of Chemistry. She said she had never thought she would engage in R&D in her life, and she had never thought of applying for the world-class university. “Thanks to encouragement and guidance from my tutor, I have fostered R&D capacity so that I can attempt to explore and show myself.”,said Wu Zishan.
“After coming to SUSTech, I can often talk with top scientists. The scientists who were so distant from me now become my dear friends. The tutors not only provide help in life and study, but also help with our improvement by sharing their academic and life experience”, said Liu Zong who was enrolled in SUSTech in 2015. 

Relevant news:
SUSTech plans to recruit 50 students in Jiangxi Province this year
(By Journalist Liao Jitang) According to certain source obtained on March 6, this year SUSTech will enroll 50 students from Jiangxi Province and the university plans to enroll more in the future. Different from previous years, SUSTech will organize computer-based exams in its independent enrollment.
According to Zhao Hongjun, Director of SUSTech Office of Admission, the university was the first in China to adopt the 631 Model enrollment as approved by the Ministry of Education. The so-called 631 Model refers to the 60% results in College Entrance Exam, the 30% results in independent enrollment written exams and interview results, and 10% high-school academic performance exam scores. Students will be enrolled in the downgrading way in the above results. 631 Model has received great recognition and some Chinese universities have started the independent enrollment in this way. The university keeps improving the model. For the first time, the independent enrollment proficiency test in 2016 will adopt the computer-based exam for the first time to test their maths and physics foundation, imagination, judgment and ability of scientific thinking, etc.
It is known that application for independent enrollment exam in SUSTech will be concluded by April 30. The applicants need to get registered online and prepare relevant materials. Only those who have passed the College Entrance Exam and the SUSTech proficiency exam might be enrolled by SUSTech.

2016, 03-10
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