Studying Mechanical Engineering in China Your Smartest Career Plan!
So, you’re thinking about becoming a mechanical engineer. Cool. But have you considered where? Let’s talk about why your degree destination should be China.
Forget the outdated lecture halls. Imagine campuses with labs that look like they’re from a sci-fi movie. Think advanced robotics, wind tunnels, and innovation centers working directly with companies like BYD and Huawei. This is the daily reality for engineering students in China.
And the best part? It won’t cost you a fortune. Tuition fees are a fraction of what you’d pay in the US or UK. Plus, the Chinese Government is practically giving away scholarships (the famous CSC scholarship) that can cover everything—tuition, housing, even a living stipend. Yes, really.
You don’t even need to know Mandarin. A growing number of programs are fully taught in English at top unis like Zhejiang University and Harbin Institute of Technology.
What do you get at the end? A degree that’s rock-solid on any global resume. With China’s "Made in China 2025" focus, the demand for skilled engineers in robotics, automotive, and aerospace is insane. You’ll have a career launchpad right there.
It’s more than a degree; it’s an adventure that sets you up for the future.
Ready to engineer your future?
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Dream of a career in Mechanical Engineering? Discover why studying in China is a game-changer! Explore top universities, scholarships, care
Studying in China Remotely from Germany - Some Experiences
As I have mentioned in a previous entry, the past winter term I studied at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Unfortunately, I could not enter the country due to the Covid restrictions that have been still present when the semester started - nevertheless, I thought it might be valuable to share some experiences.
Studying Remotely
What had been a frustrating experience is that the exchange semester - which I had started organizing in summer 2021 - could not take place in person. The exchange semester started in September 22 and the information that exchange students cannot enter China was sent by the end of June 22. Thus, it was only roughly two months before the semester started until I knew for sure that I will not study on Tsinghua Campus. This had been unfortunate, because I was thinking about cancelling the exchange but it was too short to organize something else in Germany, as for instance an internship. I could have expected that it will not work anyway but somehow I kept some naive optimism until I knew for sure. Hence, after some considerations (Tsinghua expected a response already about one week after they sent the notice) I decided to do the exchange semester nevertheless. Even though this meant not having access to most of the experiences that make an exchange semester worthwhile and spending another semester mostly at home - even though there are nearly no Covid restrictions in Germany anymore. Back then, I was at least happy that I could avoid the risk of ending up in a harsh Chinese lockdown - the opposite happened: China gave up most of its Covid regulations. I’m happy and I hope that future exchange students will be more lucky than me in this respect.
Choice of Lectures
Since the lectures made up nearly everything of my exchange experience, it was also a little frustrating to see in the beginnning that the offered lectures in English are very limited at Tsinghua University - also regarding the point that one got access to the lecture lists only roughly a week before the semester started. In particular, nearly all useful lectures of the Physics Department were held in Chinese, which was unfortunate because I was enrolled as a student of this department and there were regulations that one was only allowed to do a very limited amount of credits outside the own department. Nevertheless, I tried to do the best out of it and attended at least one lecture (the only one which was in English and somehow useful for me) of the physics department about topological materials from an experimentalist’s standpoint. I already attended a theory course about this topic at TUM but at least I got a new perspective on some issues in this field.
Eventually, I also found interesting courses in the realm of computer science: one about theoretical informatics (automata theory) and machine learning. The latter was the most useful course in the whole semester because it covered a lot of different machine learning techniques, some of its mathematical background but it mostly focused on its application. The course offered a lot of programming exercises as well as a larger programming project which did not only help me to think through a more complex task but also gave me the opportunity to work together with Chinese students. In particular because I want to focus on numerical physics in my future and machine learning techniques become more and more prominent in physics, this computer science related lecture was very useful.
Last but not least, I also attended a course about Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, a lecture completely beyond my scientist-horizon. But it was a nice experience because it required a different kind of thinking than I am used to, even though analytical philosophy also covers aspects of philosophy of mathematics and science. I guess it is smart to learn a subject outside the bubble of quantitative science as well because it gives you some new perspectives which you usually easily ignore but shouldn’t.
Time Shift and Learning Mandarin
One further important point about studying remotely is the time shift of course. Between Munich and Beijing it is 6 or 7 hours difference (depending on the daylight saving time in Germany). Fortunately, most of the lectures were recorded anyway such that one could avoid living in another time zone. What one could not avoid was writing (midterm/final) exams in the middle of the night, what was definitely demanding.
Regarding learning Mandarin: I started learning Chinese one year before the exchange semester started, but to be honest I doubt it would have been enough for basic communcation in the supermarket. Even though Chinese has rather easy grammar, learning to understand the tones and the ambiguities in this language is the true challenge. However, it would have been truly useful to have more Mandarin skills: The online portals of the university are in Chinese of course and often I experienced that I could not access everything with the English counterparts. Another important point is that not all lecturers take English as instruction language so seriously: In one lecture many exercise materials had been in Chinese (and the topic was too technical to translate with baidu) such that exchange students had a clear disadvantage - but I want to emphasize that this depends on the lecturer - most of my lectures had been organized perfectly in English.
Conclusion and Hints
All in all, I hope I was able to make the best out of this exchange semester. I have mostly chosen lectures which were beyond my known horizon but nevertheless not useless in my discipline. Nevertheless, I could have attended lectures at my home universities which would have been much more favorable from an academic perspective. However, I think it was also nice to be forced to study outside the own discipline and to learn subjects I would have never decided to learn at TUM and LMU. Nonetheless, I still find it surprising that an elite university as Tsinghua offers most of its lectures in Chinese - in particular TUM and LMU are contrasting starkly regarding this, because here all lectures (at least at the physics departments) are held in English at the Masters level.
Hence, I think this online exchange semester was a worthwhile experience despite all these issues. Finally, I am also happy that it is over and that I will start my Masters thesis soon here in Germany. I’m glad to have the chance to dive completely into (numerical) physics and related research questions!
Finally, some hints if you’re planning to do an exchange semester in China (from my limited perspective as I haven’t been there in person)
When planning the exchange also develop a plan B: For me it would have made things so much easier if I had planned something in parallel (e.g. an internship in Germany) because then my decision of doing the exchange semester or not would not have been based on the lack of good alternatives.
Be patient: The administration (at least as I experienced it at Tsinghua) is rather slow and it happened that I never received answers to my e-mails.
Be open-minded: As I explained in detail, lectures are mostly held in Chinese and one has to be flexible with the course choice in English. If you stick to the idea of remaining in your own discipline, an exchange semester will be a frustrating experience.
Tsinghua School students burn Japanese products, 1919, as part of the May 4th Movement. Angry that China’s government had allowed Japan to keep Chinese territory after World War I, students around the country protested and boycotted Japanese goods. The upheaval radicalized many people around China and led to the establishment of the Communist Party there.
Tsinghua University, located in northwest Beijing, China, is a public institution that traces its roots back to 1911. The primary language of instruction is Chinese, though there are some graduate degree programs offered in English. For instance, the university has English-taught master's programs in Chinese politics, foreign policy and international relations; mechanical engineering; and global business journalism, among others. Tuition costs vary by degree program and language of instruction. The university's international students hail from more than 100 countries, with the bulk of them coming from Asia. In a recent year, 41 percent of the university's non-Chinese students were undergraduates, 29 percent were pursuing master's degrees, 9 percent were doctoral students and the rest were participating in shorter-term programs. Tsinghua University housing is available for both undergraduate and graduate students.
The university comprises numerous schools and departments, which offer programs across a variety of disciplines: science, engineering, literature, arts, history, philosophy, economics, management, law, education and medicine. In all, there are more than 70 degree programs available to undergraduate students at Tsinghua University, as well as many more master's and doctoral programs. The university has more than 300 research institutions. Among the university's research labs are the Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Science and Technology, the State Key Laboratory of Precision Measuring Technology and Instruments and the National Engineering Laboratory for Digital Television. Students at Tsinghua have around 200 student groups that they can get involved in, such as the Zijing Volunteer Service and the Students' Performing Arts Club.
Ouverture du deuxième Dialogue mondial de la jeunesse de Tsinghua
Le 2nd Dialogue mondial de la jeunesse de Tsinghua s'est tenu sur le thème "Harmonie et unité pour le plus grand bien commun"
Communiqué Tsinghua University – Le 29 août, le deuxième Dialogue mondial de la jeunesse de Tsinghua s’est tenu à l’université de Tsinghua. Le thème “Harmonie et unité pour le plus grand bien commun” a rassemblé plus de 100 représentants de la jeunesse de 35 pays et régions du monde.
Ce rassemblement sert de creuset d’idées où de jeunes esprits dynamiques collaborent pour tracer des voies vers la…
