Real vs. Fake Credit System
Back in 2009 and 2010, I was looking for PhD opportunities everywhere. Given the good合作关系 (cooperative relationship) between my software school and Sweden’s Uppsala University, I went on a semi-public, semi-private “inspection” trip to Uppsala to see what PhD opportunities were available there. Ultimately, I didn’t study there for two reasons. First, that place is too stifling. It’s号称 (supposedly) Sweden’s fourth-largest city, but the entire urban area is about the same size as Tongji’s Jiading campus—you can walk around it in half an hour. Barely anyone on the streets, like it was just hit by an atomic bomb. They have polar nights and polar days. The tallest building is a church—typical of an economy that hasn’t developed since the Viking era. Compare: Singapore’s tallest buildings are banks, Hong Kong’s are office towers (ICC), mainland China’s are China Mobile and Party committee buildings. Spending four years in a place like that would drive anyone crazy. Second, they offered me a PhD in Computer Education. Their system is odd—Computer Education is under the Computer Science department. I worried that even if I graduated, when I returned to China, university leaders would see “Education” on my diploma and assign me to the liberal arts school—disaster. So I gave up.
Even though I didn’t pursue a PhD in education, that doesn’t stop me from observing and reflecting on education systems at home and abroad. Today I’ll talk about academic systems. All personal observations—no guarantees of accuracy or completeness. Many Chinese universities claim to use a credit system. Tongji is one of them. Having only been in China, I never thought there was a problem—every course has credits. But after coming abroad and comparing, I realized our credit system is watered down—it’s a credit system with Chinese characteristics. Why? Let me first explain the categories. Based on my experience, academic systems fall into three types: the year-based system, the credit-based system, and the mentorship system.
Mentorship system is probably the most familiar. It’s ancient—in martial arts novels, all training is mentorship. Go to Wudang or Shaolin, apprentice to a master. The master is your衣食父母 (provider), responsible not just for your studies but for your daily life, words, and even actions. Today, Zhao Benshan takes on apprentices like Xiao Shenyang—still mentorship. Zhao has to care about Xiao Shenyang’s life—if Xiao can’t afford a house, Zhao lends or gives him money to buy one. As they say, “Once a teacher, forever a father.” The master has absolute authority. Whether you graduate is entirely up to the master. The master is responsible for your academic level and their own academic reputation. If a disciple’s skill is too low, they can be expelled on the spot—otherwise, once they leave the mountain and embarrass the master, the master’s reputation is ruined. People would say, “Wow, singing errenzhuan like that and claiming to be Zhao Benshan’s disciple?” Or, “Fighting like that and claiming to have trained under灭绝师太 (Eradication, the nun)?” Same in academia. “Wow, can’t even do packet capture and keyword filtering, and claiming to be Professor Fang’s disciple?” The professor’s academic reputation is ruined. In Hong Kong, PhD is a typical mentorship system. The advisor funds your scholarship from their research grants, covering your food, housing, and even iPad purchases. Unlike China, where the government provides研究生补贴 (graduate student subsidies) and scholarships. Everything requires the advisor’s approval—what courses to take, where to submit papers, whether you can intern, go abroad for exchange, go to Shenzhen on weekends, date, go home for holidays, etc. The school system constantly reminds you to communicate with your supervisor. Whether you graduate is ultimately the advisor’s decision—no hard指标 (metrics) like “three SCI papers” as in China. This actually剥夺 (deprives) the advisor’s authority, or reflects leadership’s distrust of advisors—fearing they’d go easy on students. There are indeed low-quality advisors in China who let students slide. With the big-pot system and no way to fire advisors, leadership resorts to such rules.
The second most familiar system is the year-based system. Nine-year compulsory education is a classic example. In a year-based system, the year (grade) is the measure of academic progress. “What grade is your child in? Third grade.” That means they’ve completed 3/9 of their education. Talented students can skip grades—some “prodigies” jump from grade 1 to 3 to 5. Poor performers repeat grades. Another feature is graduating on schedule—when you finish the highest grade, everyone graduates. If not publicly funded, tuition is annual, charged by the year. Classes are another feature of the year-based system—each grade is divided into classes. My son is in kindergarten’s “small class,” assigned to “Small Class 3.” That startled me—imagine if it were “Class X” instead of “Class 3”… you’d say “I’m in Small Class 3 (小三, mistress)”—disaster. So grades, grade-skipping, grade-repeating, classes, scheduled graduation, and annual tuition are all characteristics of the year-based system.
Finally, let me talk about the credit system I’ve seen in Hong Kong. Hong Kong’s undergraduate and MSc programs are typical credit systems.
A digression about Master’s degrees. I must note that the biggest difference between domestic and foreign systems lies in the Master’s. Under the British and American systems, Master’s degrees come in two types: MSc (Master of Science) and MPhil (Master of Philosophy). The former is a taught master’s (credit-based), the latter a research master’s (mentorship-based). Taught master’s students graduate once they’ve earned enough credits—no research required. Tuition is higher, no scholarships. Study hard and you can finish in a year—some foreigners are addicted to studying and have accumulated over a dozen master’s degrees, one a year or even two in three years. The other type, MPhil, is like a PhD—coursework is a sideline (just three courses, all in the evening), with research as the main activity. After a year, you can convert to PhD (similar to China’s combined Master’s-PhD program). This one is harder to graduate from—the normal period is two years, but in our lab the fastest takes three. A few years ago, China introduced the “Engineering Master’s,” which I initially thought would be like an MSc. But it still requires a thesis and defense—neither fish nor fowl. The problem is that China doesn’t distinguish between research and taught master’s. Both types from abroad are recognized as “Master’s” in China, and few people know the difference. But in terms of capability培养 (cultivation), they’re worlds apart—one emphasizes research ability, the other comprehension ability (essentially a fifth year of undergrad). So MSc is hugely popular among Chinese students. Especially now with the global economic downturn, many prestigious US universities have lowered their taught master’s admission门槛 (thresholds). If you can pay tuition, you’re in. So don’t be impressed by someone getting into a名校 (famous school) for a Master’s—ask whether it’s taught or research. Many taught master’s students are rich second-generation or official second-generation—like Bo XX.
Back to the credit system. As the name suggests, credits are the sole measure of academic progress. Whether you graduate depends on whether you’ve earned enough credits. Tuition is also tied to credits—pay for the number of credits you take. Tongji started accepting Alipay for tuition this year. Since you’re already using Alipay, why not integrate it with the course selection system? Select courses, then one button to pay via Alipay. Pay for the credits you select—that would be right. (Go further: courses with lots of negative reviews could cost less per credit, popular courses more—use economic杠杆 (leverage) to balance enrollment.) Currently, China charges annual tuition. Students, you’re getting a great deal—like unlimited broadband. You could take 200 credits’ worth of courses for the same price as 100! Since credits are the measure of progress, grades and classes naturally disappear. There’s no “freshman, sophomore, junior” concept. Just a graduation window, say [2, 8] years—a学霸 (academic overlord) finishes in two years, a slacker gets their enrollment canceled after eight. In between, you can intern, work, do whatever. Look at the NBA—Shaquille O’Neal played for years, then remembered he was still a few credits short of his bachelor’s degree. He went back during the off-season, earned those credits, and graduated. In China, you’re still assigned to a class with a班主任 (homeroom teacher) and辅导员 (counselor). Poor grades mean repeating a year, and they still claim it’s a credit system—pure comedy. If you graduate when you’ve earned enough credits, then enrollment and graduation should happen year-round. PolyU holds graduation ceremonies twice a year. Once you’ve earned enough credits, the school certifies you as graduated, and you go find a job. You might have been working for six months before returning for the ceremony. Since enrollment happens year-round, concepts like “class of XX” or “batch of XX” don’t quite fit either. The lines between senior and junior blur—a junior might graduate before a senior has earned half their credits. Without classes, the concept of classmates is looser—anyone taking the same course is a classmate. When Kai-Fu Lee says he was classmates with Obama and even slept through class next to him—true or not, at most they took the same course. But Chinese journalists report it as “classmates in the same class”—they think US education is the same as China’s. With classes gone, the “collective honor” that China emphasizes fades. You rarely see “Accounting Class 1 vs. Civil Engineering Class 3” basketball games with female classmates cheering. How do they bond without class collectives? Dormitory collectives instead. Here, students have strong dormitory pride. Dormitories are divided into Halls, each with different styles and symbols—even mottos and logos. Students voluntarily choose which Hall to join. Sports competitions are Hall vs. Hall. Harry Potter fans will recognize this: Gryffindor Hall, Slytherin Hall—each with mottos, logos, and Quidditch matches between Halls. Same in Hong Kong.
I originally planned not to reference any materials for this article, but I couldn’t resist googling “credit system” and found Baidu Baike’s entry. It claims the credit system has three major harms: first, losing the collective, creating administrative inconvenience; second, students feel lost choosing courses; third, students become undisciplined. If I hadn’t seen it, fine—but having seen it, I must respond. This is典型 (typical) Chinese thinking. Why do you need to manage students’ thoughts? Why manage their discipline? They’re adults, fully capable of civil conduct—responsible for their own actions. Crimes are handled by police. If they skip class to play games, that’s their choice—they bear the consequences. As for feeling lost choosing courses—whose fault is that? The education system! On one hand, high school exam-oriented cramming has stupefied students; majors are chosen by parents. How could students know what they like? On the other hand, university curriculum settings are chaotic. PolyU’s Computing Department has a 400+ page syllabus—each course’s content, textbooks, references, prerequisites, and mutually exclusive courses are clearly marked. Regardless of who teaches it, the content is largely consistent. Tongji’s syllabus is a mess—you only see the course name when selecting, with no idea what it covers. This breeds clickbait—you enroll and find you’ve been cheated. Prerequisites and mutual exclusions are胡乱 (randomly) filled in. I found a prerequisite cycle: deadlock depends on databases, databases depend on operating systems, OS depends on Windows programming, Windows programming depends on databases—a loop. As for mutually exclusive courses, Tongji’s syllabus doesn’t even have this concept. Assembly teaches architecture, architecture teaches assembly—these should be mutually exclusive; pick one.
Of course, different countries and schools may have slightly different specific systems, and types may overlap. Marxist philosophy teaches us to抓主要矛盾 (grasp the main contradiction). Mathematical optimization is the same—don’t do multi-objective optimization; maximize/minimize one main objective, make the rest constraints that can’t be crossed. So to judge which system a system belongs to, the key question is: how do you graduate? Mentorship: the advisor says you graduate. Credit system: earn enough credits. Year-based system: finish the highest grade. There may be secondary contradictions or additional constraints—like our PhD is mentorship-based but still requires at least 15 credits. The credit system may also impose time limits to prevent学霸s from graduating in one semester or钉子户s from staying for 30-50 years. Now we know—what system is China’s undergraduate? Credits are at most a constraint. Graduation is still批量 (batch-based)—graduate in your senior year. Classic year-based system.
The most serious consequence is that China’s master’s education follows the same model. Many people think a master’s is 2.5 years—year-based. Year 1: all courses (too many); Year 2: corporate internship or helping the advisor with chores; Year 2.5: write thesis, graduate. If you don’t graduate in 2.5 years, it feels like repeating a grade—shameful. HR people don’t understand either—seeing a resume with a 3.5-year master’s, they think “didn’t graduate on time, probably not a good student”—still year-based thinking. In reality, graduation time has little to do with ability. A guy in our lab is doing MPhil—he finished everything except his thesis defense, went to work overseas, and will come back in two years to defend. In China, HR would think he dropped out. Add in the advisor’s lack of authority (or the advisor thinking the school is too controlling, so they disengage). Credits are too easy to earn. When the 2.5-year mark approaches, pressure from all sides forces the school and advisor to let the student graduate. But what if the student’s level is terrible? Nothing to be done—let them go! So the quality gap between domestic and foreign undergraduates isn’t that big—especially at名校 (famous schools)—it’s not坑爹 (father-cheating). But the master’s training? That坑爹 (father-cheating) on a grand scale.
I’ve suffered from it personally. I was naive—when I got the offer to skip the entrance exam for grad school, I went. Once I started, I realized it was坑爹 and wanted to drop out. But pressure from all sides—especially my parents—prevented it. I was supposedly the first graduate student in the He family’s history—equivalent to passing the imperial exams and becoming a举人 (provincial scholar) in ancient times—bringing glory to our ancestors. How could I drop out? What was I thinking? One of my classmates successfully withdrew and went to Singapore instead. Now, seeing me struggle through my Hong Kong PhD—studying until 2-3 AM every night—my parents have finally realized that domestic graduate school really did坑 me. In Hong Kong, I’ve met several PhD or MPhil students who dropped out mid-way through domestic programs and came here. Some even paid违约金 (penalty fees). I truly admire their ideals, aspirations, and pursuits—and believe they made the right move.
Finally, if my former master’s advisor, Professor Chen Rong, or others who helped me during my Master’s read this—I hold no grudge against you. First, any experience is a form of wealth. It’s hard to judge good or bad—like Jobs: if he hadn’t studied Eastern culture, he wouldn’t have designed those beautiful Mac fonts based on calligraphy, and he wouldn’t have tried traditional Chinese medicine for his cancer. Second, even if I hate something, it’s the education system I hate. As the Party teaches us: “Our goal is to destroy the evil capitalist system, not the capitalists themselves.”