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CET Harbin: My Final Assessment
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-葛亚辉- -

Well, I have now completed my summer in CET Harbin’s program, and I thought I’d take some time
to write out my assessment of the various aspects of the program for anyone who is interested.

Classes: By and large, these were great. CET Harbin requires four classes, your one-on-one,
one-on-two, and two electives. I found three of my four classes to be incredibly helpful and also
enjoyable (the fourth, 口语/”Conversation” was helpful, but not particularly enjoyable). The
one-on-one, which is CET Harbin’s most enticing special point, is a fantastic opportunity, and I
loved my class and got a ton out of it. However, I would suggest taking some care when selecting
your topic, and being very very specific about what kinds of things you want to study. The
two-on-one class focuses pretty much entirely on pronunciation, and is also incredibly useful. I
really have no complaints about CETs classes, except that the textbook we used for my Conversation
class was pretty boring (although the vocab is all useful). No class was bigger than 6 people. A+
to CET Harbin on this one.

Language Pledge: Lots of Chinese programs have a language pledge in place, but from what I’ve
heard, these pledges are often not well respected, especially in places like Beijing, where there
are tons of English speakers. CET Harbin students (at least the ones in my session) were by and
large very serious about the language pledge, and it was very rarely broken. Additionally, Harbin
isn’t easy to get around using English, so the immersion enviornment is almost certainly better
than in Beijing.

Chinese Roommates: Another CET specialty, the Chinese roommates were an integral part of our
experience. As I expounded on earlier on this blog, learning culture is pretty important in
understanding a language, and they were incredibly helpful to that end. They were also, on the
whole, friendly and very willing to help people do the more difficult things (buy and activate a
cell phone, etc.). Moreover, it’s incredibly satisfying when you realize that you’re having
real conversations with Chinese college students, whether they be jokes over beers at Lijiang or
late night discussions of cultural differences. And of course, by the time you leave, you’ll
probably realize you’ve made some good Chinese friends.

Harbin Environment: If you’re not the sort of person who needs a big city like Beijing to have
fun, Harbin is pretty much perfect. The Chinese spoken there is very standard, the only deviation
being a slightly strange pronunciation of the “o” sound in “mo”, “po”, “fo”, etc.
The area around Gongda is full of good restaurants large and small. There are plenty of things to
do at night, bars, KTV, clubs, etc., and also a fair number of touristy sights, including the
famous St. Sophia, Buddhist and Confucian Temples, Zhongyang Dajie, the Songhua River, Taiyang
Island, etc. Some people didn’t like Harbin very much, but personally I loved it, and I plan to
go back.

CET Facilities: The dorm rooms are large, comfortable, and decently equipped. In fact, given that
they provide a TV and every room has a fan, my room was significantly better equipped than any
college dorm room I’ve been in in the States. For classes, CET uses Gongda’s international
student center, which is pretty unremarkable. The classrooms are equipped with air conditioners,
although they don’t always cool rooms very fast.

Weekend Trips: By and large these were good, the highlights being Xianglu Shan and the three-day
weekend trip to Dandong which you’ve already read about. Near the end of the program they got
sort of lame, but that was actually something of a blessing as by that time many of us were
familiar with Harbin and had a good idea of what we wanted to do with our free time on our own.

Overall: CET Harbin is an incredible experience. It’s not for everyone, and if you aren’t
really serious about improving your Chinese or you’re looking for a relaxing touristy summer, I
strongly advise you to stay away, but if you are serious about studying Chinese I think you might
be hard pressed to find a better program for it. In all honesty, my biggest complaint about the
whole thing was that the dialogues in one of my textbooks were a little boring, and I think that
speaks to the quality of the program. The people who work at CET Harbin are very dedicated to
improving your Chinese, and also appear to be constantly reviewing and revising their staff.
Obviously, enrollment in a program like this doesn’t guarantee improvment, but if you invest
yourself in their program and participate, you will see signficant improvements.

just my $0.02. happy to answer questions if anyone's got em.



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DrZero -

Thanks for the detailed review. Was the program only for college students, or were there some
oldies too?










kdavid -

I'd also like to know the answer to this question. I've heard nothing but good things about CET,
and, as I am already in Harbin, I'd like to look more into CET. The little research I've done
suggests, however, that it is only for college students, and I've already graduated.












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