Sichuan University - Positive experience

The students - non-English majors, freshmen. They are fairly hardworking and I do not have much trouble at all. Naturally some of them just don't care and the really apathetic don't come to lessons anymore so my classes are thinner. The grade for the class is 50% participation, 50% attendance so they are not doing themselves any favours but, hey-ho.

The teaching - 1 identical class 16 times over the week. The syllabus is set from a book but we are only really asked to cover the topics-we are in no way tied to the book so we feel free to do as we see fit. The classrooms are equipped with computers and projectors making the use of powerpoint easy. Lessons are 45mins long.

The faculty - are nice to deal with, generally helpful and accommodating. There was some disorganisation before term re: syllabus but this is minor really, I can still teach without a syllabus. Overall I get the impression that they are batting for our team - I was warned off the job by an ex-employee on the other site; he was complaining that the schedule was being changed to four days teaching rather than two, so this would mean four days commute to the new campus. This hasn't happened-the university in response to some student's complaints about teacher tiredness, wanted to increase the schedule to four days but the department convinced them that 2 1/2 days would be fine. So we have two days of 6 lessons and one day of 4 and these are consecutive. Also recently they also shelled out for the expense of a laowai laoshi only minibus - this was in response to some complaints from teachers about having to push to get on the bus etc. A nice gesture but not everybody has a problem with the normal bus and no one was asked if they want it. Some signs of resentment from the Chinese teachers are showing.

The commute - the campus that holds freshmen is in the southwest of Chengdu, some way out of town. The bus takes between 20-35mins depending on traffic and the route that the driver decides to take. The buses run regularly enough to make it easy to avoid being late on the occasions of a full bus when you havve to catch the next one.

The pay - 4000 + 1500 housing stipend. I am finding 4000 easily sufficient to live on at the moment, although it may become more difficult when I start to run out of the meds I bought from home. I am eating out every night, going out at the weekends and drinking and still I don't seem to be able to get rid of it! 1500 is enough for a decent, new, clean apartment in the city, you can live close to the university for this money as well.

Overall I'm enjoying this job and having a relatively stress free time, I would recommend it to anyone.

Hey Nate maybe if Kunming doesn't work out we will mosey over your way then

Ditto that.

The busing set up is not uncommon in China and I applaud the university for offering it rather than forcing teachers to live in the nowhere zone. If a school stacks the trips to to as few as possible in a week and provides a special minibus then I think that's pretty exceptional. It is a sign of good faith compared to teachers being forced to trek way out much of the week, or worse: to live in such seclusion. There are a few universities I work with that get this. When they had to build new campuses far removed from the urban center, i. e. "life," rather than force the foreign teachers to live out in the wasteland they simply sent them on school buses out there to work, and then bussed them back to enjoy their life with as much convenience as possible. Not all of the universities I've had to work with did this, but a few, and that shows that someone, somewhere in the guts of what makes up the long intestine of a university's bureaucracy had a sense of humanity.

Does your school offer assistance in finding the apartment (translation)? That is a tough thing for a newbie to deal with.

Hey bumping this as it may be useful this time of year, I think confirmations of who is staying and who is going from our clutch of teachers will happen at a meeting tomorrow. To answer your question rollerboogie: yes. When we first landed/arrived in Chengdu each person was assigned an English major masters student to help them in the first few weeks/month or two. Also a caveat about accommmodation - it is actually a little difficult to find decent accommodation for 1500 around the main university campus. By 'decent' I mean separate bedroom, new-ish, clean, a relaxed amount of space and a sit-down pooper. However by moving in with a colleague recently I have found a pretty tight place that is stupidly convenient (both in terms of the main campus and other amenities, bars, restaurants, supermarkets etc) for 1400 pp. 

Hi Nato,
I was just wondering if you would be able to pm me a contact at this University.
Looking to head to Chengdu around September time, be interesting to hear any other advice or thought you may have.
Thanks 

Yeah no probs Chief. Btw some of my friends are still there and things are going fine. This year they switched the work week back to two days apparently, so it's only Thurs and Fri and the rest of the week is yours. Cheeky buggers.

And I noticed this thread is up to 1000 views, hope all you lurkers are finding it useful. No, no need to thank me 

Thanks alot, apparently I can't read my pm's yet but I could see what you said in the email notification!
I'll get in contact within the next week or so, just need to sort out my c.v. from what i've read and heard it's a lovely place, and also a bit more lively than the place im in now!