Never felt so frustrated before to a point that I gave up studying in Taiwan. (Rant)

I was a student at NTU. Studied engineering but I left halfway through to study in my own country. Transferred about half of the credits. I am a failure I know but there are so many things that I hate. I am not a native speaker so some of the things I said might not make sense. This is also intended for prospective students considering to study in Taiwan. Skip to the serious rant part if you are this person.

(Minor Rant) I wanted to switch major in my freshman year. But the school made it so fucking hard to switch for international students that if you donā€™t get 4.0 gpa and above, you are trash and donā€™t deserve to be considered. Also, I just never adapt to the local culture at all. I love the people. Made a lot of memories and friends. But I never get used to the uber-competitive study environment (maybe because itā€™s engineering) and (funny) also the ęˆ‘å°±ēˆ› meme culture. I hate how people fetishizes food here when clearly most of the food here just taste like chemicals. Also, I am not a fan of anime and Japanese girls so I donā€™t anything to talk with my classmates besides course materials which made me so depressed because I have no one to share my interest with ( FPS video games) I wonā€™t talk about pollution and traffic because those things are present in every major city in the world.

(Serious rant)Professors at NTU also have this holier-than-thou attitude that made my learning process so much more difficult. I literally went to this professor for a math question and he straight up told me that I am gonna fail his course if I couldnā€™t solve this particular question. Didnā€™t withdraw anyways and ultimately failed and had to retake it in sophomore year. When selecting courses, there are professors who refuse to take international students. Professor who fail you for no reason but I appealed in the end. Also, I hate the fact that I was promised that everything at NTU will be taught in full English. But guess what, expectations subverted. Lab classes are taught in Mandarin and only some of the slides are in English. The English version textbooks contain so many spelling errors and even missing paragraphs. It is a General Physics Lab. How hard is it to translate it properly? My god. Also, most of the teaching assistants reply emails in Mandarin when I clearly typed my email in English.

What I failed to do:
Studying harder and get a 4.0 gpa. Seeking assistance from seniors of the same country. Finding a girlfriend and probably I will like things here more? Talking to friends. I was so depressed during my time here so I didnā€™t do anything above. I kinda gave up and was miserable near the end of sophomore year.

I hope I donā€™t sound like an unappreciative foreigner which many people loathe on this forum. I just want to post this somewhere on the Internet to let prospective students know a thing or two before spending money to study in Taiwan (even at NTU). Of course, some people will have better experiences but I certainly did not have a great time here.

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Youā€™re not a failure. I work in a uni, and I know a few professors like the ones you describe. They donā€™t accommodate the exchange students, go through the motions when teaching so everyone is bored and no one wants to learn, and take sadistic delight in failing students. Sorry you had a bad experience. Get your revenge by writing about them on D Card.

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This is not failure. I hope you find a better learning environment in your new institution, though with the COVID-19 crisis around the world, there almost certainly will be disruptions and changes no matter where you ended up. Itā€™s a lesson for life, though not always an easy one.

Guy

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I personally donā€™t think the uni vibe here is that bad but its certainly rigid and its not for everybody. If you donā€™t fit a certain stereotype you will have a hard time here. Thereā€™s still too much of the old Asian mentality alive in these institutions, Professors are regarded as demigods that do whatever they want.

If you donā€™t mind me asking, where you are from?

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Yeah, they certainly donā€™t teach everything in English. Although textbooks should be in English. I donā€™t know about breadth classes, but even if it is a breadth class, physics sounds like one of those classes that would just use the same book as most universities in the US. I used to buy English textbooks in Taiwan because they are cheaperā€¦

It sounds like you couldnā€™t build a support system here in Taiwan, sorry to hear that. That sounds tough.

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Can confirm. What you said is absolutely true. Although I was a degree-seeking student. Also, I donā€™t want to be so subjective with my experience but local Taiwanese seem to have some form of discrimination against South East Asian foreigners?

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Malaysia

You are not a failure, Iā€™m not prof nor English teacher ā€¦ Iā€™m a mom.
My son feels the same way you do and his not International student but he had the same feelings his taking communication engr but not at NTU . Anyway he stop so that he could think if it was really for him or not then he receive a letter at the army.

Now he signed 4 yrs contract and want to be a professional marine corps.

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Yes unfortunately thereā€™s a lot of racism if you look South East Asian, though they are almost always passive aggressive.

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I feel like professors thinking they are demi god comes with the territory, especially if they go to a prestigious university.

I had classes I struggled to understand at UT Austin though professors for the most part will explain the stuff in their office hours, but classes are still hard. But in Taiwan I went to a conference at NTUST and the professor doing the event initially let me go for free (the event had a fee of 6000nt that I could not afford) but demanded payment midway through. No explanation as to why.

I will not trust a Taiwanese professor ever since.

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Iā€™ve known all kinds of professors, some that are fantastic and others that were abusive to the students and their lab workers. Itā€™s the luck of the draw, but the ā€˜laoshiā€™ mentality is strong in ethnic Chinese/East Asian culture of course. Malaysia has had a much bigger influence from the West in particular the British . Itā€™s way more multicultural too.
And NTU Profs are often a bit full of themselves (the Profs that I respect the most are not actually NTU Profsā€¦interestinglyā€¦but work for Changgeng University, and Changgeng Hospital, a private but very very professional uni and hospital).

Itā€™s not that bad that you switched because you wonā€™t waste any more time trying to fit in in a place that you really canā€™t fit in well. And itā€™s not really an international environment in those classes but they sell it as such, how many per cent of the students in your classes were foreigners?

Also a lot of younger Taiwanese donā€™t have much life experience, so thereā€™s that too. After they travel and work a bit overseas it could be easier to make friends with them. As they live in a little bubble here.

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I was both a student here doing a masters and also am a uni teacher now. I absolutely know both sides. I wouldnā€™t say you are a failure. Taiwan is not for everyone to love. I do find it funny that as a student, many profs and admin people love grinding your nose into paperwork. Itā€™s the national past time, I swear. Think of a frivolous task, elevate it to a graduation requirement, require 3 different chop stamps to document completion, then pat yourselves on the back with a job well done. Rinse, repeat and make a career out of it. In retirement, you can marvel at all you accomplished.

Many such teachers and admin couldnā€™t survive in the outside world where people want skills and things to mean something.

Sometimes Iā€™m forced to play the confused foreigner teacher when things pop up but that said, my uni isnā€™t too bad and itā€™s not too burdensome.

But, totally know what you mean. :slight_smile:

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Donā€™t worry, you are not a failure. I also gave up studying here a few years ago, the good thing for me was that i realized it wasnā€™t for me after the first semester.

I studied Diplomacy (外äŗ¤ē³») and can share many things that you pointed out. Some professors teaching in Mandarin, handing out the exams with the 3 questions written in Mandarin, while the course was advertised as ā€œEnglishā€. I had about 2 minutes after i received the exam to quickly ask my classmate to roughly translate the questions for me just before the exam started.
Some of the classes where I was the only foreigner, it was basically me and the foreign professors talking to each other the whole class, since none of the tw classmates are willing to share their opinion, no matter how much the professors tried to get something out of them. While not super important but especially interesting in this type of degree, a discussion was never possible, since again, tw students never learned how to voice their opinion on anything.

I was 21 at the time i started my bachelor with the regular freshmen here being 18/19 i think. But the age difference felt crazy huge. While in Germany I had many younger friends, be it playing soccer in the same team or going out to have a drink. The freshmen here are literally kids. I lived in the 4 person shared dorm and seeing some of them unable to wash/fold clothes, never cleaning up their trash, generally unable to take care of themselves was super frustrating.

I still consider this time extremely valuable and I have made my closest taiwanese friends during this semester, but I can totally understand why you couldnā€™t move on.

In the end I also havenā€™t been happy with the university life in Germany.

Now, working and living here in Taiwan is how I imagined my life. Studying is just not for everyone, no matter where in the world you are.

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I donā€™t think there are any engineering courses genuinely taught in English. The unis are kidding themselves. Business type courses, maybe. Linguistics, probably.

Engineering simply isnā€™t possible. The English ability of the students and the lecturers isnā€™t up to it.

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Taiwanese are raised to be compliant, not to have discussions with anyone. Not all are like this but the kind of people accepted into NTU are like this. They are drilled into taking exams and doing everything their parents say.

If you want Taiwanese who voiced their opinion, look for blue collar types. Be warned some of them are quite rough but also are under immense pressure because theyā€™re often forced to work odd jobs to support the family (I mean their parents and stuff). Also they definitely do not speak English so it could be a challenge to talk to them but theyā€™re nothing like the college students you see.

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Donā€™t sweat it man. Here asking questions and having your own thoughts is generally looked down upon (at least in the school system).

The important thing is you tried your best.

Yes thatā€™s right. I just wanted to point out that I can see OP or other foreign students having difficulties adjusting to that kind of student experience here, as I had the same problems. I also came to appreciate many aspects of student life here which I found lacking at German universities.
I can now speak Chinese well and made tw friends from different backgrounds.
Studying here just wasnā€™t the right choice for me at that time, but I wanted to like it so much.

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I have to disagree with you here.
I did my EE masters in Taiwan, all English. Not all I wanted classes were available in English, but enough to allow me to complete my studies.
That was 8 years ago. I would expect things had only improved in the past years.

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Bingo. I was in a Chinese course years ago and had some female classmates from Vietnam. One day they were absent and the teacher used the opportunity to complain about the work ethic of Vietnamese and that they were probably mail order brides.

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I had bad experiences in Korea. I wanted to study Korean literature at Seoul National University. I go for my interview. The prof never even looked at me in the eye. He asked what literature I had read. In my excitement, I started naming the short stories and poems that I liked. In the middle the prof put down his pen in disgust because he couldnā€™t write as quickly as I was talking. Young and excited. How was I supposed to know? He was a complete ass and Iā€™ll never forget that experience. I wasnā€™t accepted. It was probably the right decision, if Iā€™m totally honest. But what a jerk.

I know a guy who wasnā€™t accepted at SNU and it turned out to be their loss. He ended up going to Yonsei U and then Harvard for his doctorate. He is now a professor.

Went to an MBA program at Yonsei U for one semester. Hated it. The profs didnā€™t do much. Just sat there while we gave presentation after presentation.

I imagine things are not that different here.

To the OP regarding engineeringā€¦you can be a terrible engineer and still do okay in a related field, like managing a team of engineers, going into intellectual property, etc.

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