Tsinghua University

清华大学 Qīnghuá dàxué, also known colloquially as 清华 Qīnghuá

Tsinghua University was founded in 1911 on the site of a royal garden once belonging to a prince. Tsinghua is one of nine universities of the elite C9 league, a group of institutions identified by the Chinese government as the original “prestigious universities” eligible for increased funding as part of the Project 985 initiative in 1998. Tsinghua regularly ranks in the top two universities in mainland China in both national and international rankings, along with Peking University, also located in Beijing.

A university with a reputation for producing scientists and engineers of the highest level, Tsinghua has also built a strong base in social sciences and the arts. Recently, Tsinghua became the first university in mainland China to offer a Masters program in American Law and its business school, the Tsinghua School of Economics and Management (SEM), is the first such school in mainland China to achieve the prestigious AACSB and EQUIS international accreditation for its business and accounting programs. The SEM has an acceptance rate of 16% for MBA students, making entry as competitive as the MBA program at Wharton Business School.

Notable past graduates from Tsinghua include Chinese President Hu Jintao, who graduated with a degree in Hydraulic Engineering, and Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping, who graduated with a degree in Chemical Engineering.

CSA Program Prices: Tsinghua

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Our two cents...

Tsinghua is one of China’s premiere universities and, along with Peking University, also in Beijing, is consistently ranked in the top two universities in China. The course load and standard of this program is comparable to Peking University, the only difference is that you can enroll as a complete beginner. Tsinghua is first and foremost an academic institution and is perfect for those students who are coming to China to get their heads down and study. Don’t get us wrong, Tsinghua students also have a lot of fun, but you will find that most of the students around you want to work hard AND play hard, rather than not work at all! Find out more about what it's like to live and study in Beijing...

Course Descriptions

Tsinghua University has has 8 levels for short term students including 1 semester, 12 weeks, summer and winter programs.

Elementary Level: The purpose of this course is to lay groundwork for the study of modern Chinese. The course has an emphasis on oral skills with classes in listening and speaking with initial presentation of the written language, both reading and writing.

A large emphasis is placed on mastering the phonetic system so as set a good foundation for further Chinese studies with the correct pronunciation and intonation. While the learning of sentence patterns is a major component of the course, efforts will be made to help students handle simple everyday tasks such as greeting, introducing friends and relatives, identifying people or objects, asking for one's personal information (including name, occupation, nationality, address, phone number), expressing gratitude to someone, sending someone your regard, making a reply to a complimentary remark, talking about your family, your school and your studies, looking for someone, seeing a guest off, asking the time, making an appointment, making an invitation, making a suggestion, asking for someone’s opinion, buying something, and offering congratulations.

Intermediate Level: The purpose of this course is to continue to lay groundwork for the study of modern Chinese by expanding on the base of Elementary Chinese. The course will provide instruction in all four language skills of aurally understanding, speaking, reading, and writing.

Many of the grammatical constructions introduced in first year Chinese will be repeated in this course with increasing sophistication in terms of style and usage. While many of the linguistic tasks students will learn to handle are similar to those of first year Chinese, the level of language required to carry out these tasks is more advanced. In this course students are required to comprehend and produce paragraph-level Chinese.

By the end of this course, students are expected to deal with daily-life related Chinese in a target language environment with no difficulty. Topics covered include: buying things, making an invitation, making an appointment, offering congratulations, asking for one's age, asking for opinions from others, presenting a gift, asking the way, making a telephone call, refusing politely, shopping, entertaining a guest, asking for information, complimenting, exchanging amenities, making a plan, asking for permission, welcoming a guest, waiting for someone, proposing a toast (if you are above 21 years old), confirming something, talking about ball games, seeing someone off, traveling, and buying tickets.


Advanced Level: The purpose of the course is to continue to develop their skills of aurally understanding, speaking, reading and writing.

Students will continue to improve their linguistic skills with a manageable degree of challenge. At the functional level, this course aims at helping students solidify their ability to comprehend and produce paragraph-level Chinese. It seeks to enable students to understand face-to-face conversations on most familiar topics, give factual accounts, read materials written in formal expression, and write simple essays, reports and other types of correspondence. There is a heavy emphasis on reading from this level covering topics such as current events, social sciences, history, and literature. Discussions on the reading materials will be conducted regularly to develop students' skills of abstract reasoning, narration and description.

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