Studying abroad for the 2015/2016 school year at one of China’s most prestigious schools, Fudan University or 复旦大学 in Shanghai, China has had a lasting impact on me. Compared to my home university campus, it’s massive and has a lot of beautiful gems. A crazy, yet, interesting and beautiful whirlwind during my stay.
Fudan University is one of the top universities in all of China leading into Business, Economics, Chinese Humanities, and Medical Studies. It is compared to the likes of Stanford and Harvard and millions of students across China compete every year to land a spot at Fudan.
This building, known as the Guanghua Building or 光华楼 is located just by the east entrance of Fudan’s main campus. In this building, many students have their classes here along with watching performances, attending conferences, and seminars. Majority of the Chinese classes taken by foreign students are conducted right in this building.
Its unique structure makes the building stand out so much that you can see it always being flaunted on any Fudan related merchandise.
This is the north gate of the campus. It is to the opposite side of where I lived, also where I took my Chinese courses in the second semester. I enjoyed coming around here in the evenings to take part in the night market food and bike around.
Visiting the school’s souvenir shop was one of my favorite past times where I indulged in accumulating gear and making comparisons to their style and collection of items to Pitt.
Many parts of the campus streets were filled with these identical trees planted down the streets symmetrically. At the bottom of the trunks, they paint it white to avoid the trees growing mold.
This area is a part of the route I would take from class to the dorm and back. It’s my favorite part of the campus because they have a big open green space with buildings with major European Architecture that contracts to the typical Chinese Architecture buildings sitting beside them.
During my second semester, I studied in this building, 第二教學樓 also known as the 2nd Teachers Building. Here, all the excess Chinese courses that could not fit in the Guanghua Building were conducted here. Most students who studied here are in the intermediate levels of the Chinese courses.
With a large campus, walking to your every class is feasible, but not always realistic if you are running low on time. Bikes were the most common way of getting around campus. You would see a ton of them parked in main areas are many students riding in packs during peak transition times during the day.
Stray cats are a common sight to see around China. And surprisingly, they are taken good care of by the community. People dedicated time to feed and tend to them so they were always in good hands.
