First Impressions of UIC

Local time: Tue Feb 20, 22:10

Oh boy! My first few days here have been quite the rollercoaster! This will probably be a long post because there has been a lot that’s happened.

I arrived to UIC on Saturday after about an hour bus ride on the city bus which got us within a few kilometers of campus. We traveled around 15km up to school on the bus costing a whopping 1 RMB. Wow! After the bus, I took a short DiDi ride to the main part of campus.

Upon arrival, I learned that campus is split into two parts, phase I and phase II. This might not sound like anything out of the ordinary, but they are actually separated by a little over 1km, or a 15 minute walk. Phase I campus is where all of the academic buildings, supermarkets, restaurant clusters (main one called Happy Eatery), and the old (still in. use) dormitories area. Phase II is a circle of 6 big dormitories where some are still being finished. This is also where they put all of the exchange (from the sister school HKBU, Hong Kong Basic Uni.) and international students. I, of course, arrived to the wrong part of campus and had to walk to the other part with all of my luggage in hand. Most of the walk is on a narrow quiet road which follows a creek and borders an ancient Chinese village called the Huitong Village. Overall, even though I arrived to the wrong spot, it wasn’t all bad being able to take in the scenery of the surrounding community of UIC.

I finally arrived to the correct part of campus (phase II) and was ready to move in! I was excited to be able to get settled in and meet my new home for the next few months. Unfortunately, I did not have anybody to greet me for a few hours.

One UIC student, named Hua gave a quick (like <10 minute) tour of the phase I campus, which I learned had free shuttle busses to and from every half hour. He also helped get my necessary things for living on campus, such as a mattress, a SIM card, wifi, and other basic necessities that are not provided by the school. The dorms on phase II campus are very nice! Each dorm room hosts 4 students ~ there is a small common room with 2 connected bedrooms, 2 connected bathrooms, and 2 sinks (in the common room) in a mirrored fashion. Not only do we have this private common space for the 4 roommates, the rooms themselves are also quite spacious and have ACs. Very necessary, it’s been high 70s and low 80s and quite humid. Despite how easy this process above sounds, it was actually quite a hassle. There was not really any planning or clear communication, lots of last minute “oh we need this, didn’t know that…” “we should have gone to the store you didn’t tell us about to get this before it was closed…” sort of situations. Hua’s English also isn’t a very high level, so there was quite a language barrier. Even though he knew I could speak Chinese (we texted in Chinese before) he never really tried to use Chinese with me for help clarifying situations. Anyways, I finally have everything I need and now I am just taking my first classes and getting comfortable in my new living situations.

My actually bedroom mate is named Mia. She is from Xi’An, China (where the Terracotta Warriors are). She arrived midday on Monday and has been super helpful with any concerns I have. She is pretty much fluent in English as well so communicating with her is very clear. I told her I wanted to practice my Chinese too and she was happy to help and use Chinese with me too 🙂 My other roommates are Eleanor and Dales. Eleanor is from Shen Zhen, so pretty near here, and Dales is from Kazakstan. They are also super nice! Eleanor studied last semester as an exchange student at HKBU where Dales is a full-time student so they knew each other from last semester. Anyways, Peter and I are both moved in and at this point it’s just about getting accustomed to the culture and campus life. (Actually harder than we thought but we still have lots to learn and lots of time).

Most of my classes have just been going over a syllabus and then going straight into lecture. I have had an Organizational Behavior class which was syllabus and lecture. It was fine, a little boring and repetitive to my business ethics class so far. I also had my Advanced Chinese class! There’s only 3 people in it (including me) and it’s a class focused specifically on speaking. It is pretty fun, we did a lot of talking and practicing/fixing grammar. My other classmates are nice! One of them is actually Luke. The only thing about that class is that the vocab we are “learning” and the topics are really basic ~ sports, transportation, shopping. Even Luke asked me after class, “don’t you think this class is too easy for you?” In a 50 minute class he could already tell it didn’t seem advanced enough for me. But since it’s a class focused on speaking I will find a lot of value in working on my grammar. I was recommended to find a professor I like and maybe talk to them about tutoring with them or someone they recommend about business/communication related Chinese topics and vocabulary. So after this week I will do that (I want to meet all of my professors first). My favorite class so far is my Organizational Communication class. Everyone in the class already knew each other and the professor from last semester’s pre-rec to this class. The professor was like “is there an exchange student here who doesn’t understand Mandarin? I thought there was one” and I raised my hand but explained how I do know Mandarin. So she asked if it was okay that she could use Mandarin to clarify some difficult topics in the class and I said yes! The rest of class was taught bilingually (slides and everything are in English still which helps). Most of that class is based around a group assignment and when we were choosing groups a nice group of girls asked if I would join them! I also met another girl who was just in Salem, Oregon and she invited me to eat lunch with her!! My last class was a strategic management but it might get cancelled because there are only 8 people enrolled and only 3 people (including myself) showed up. It’s a little different than the Chinese class rules. I feel bad because it’s taught by an assistant professor who just graduated with his PhD and it’s his first year teaching! Anyways, overall I’ve had a pretty good impression of my classes. All but one of my professors (the one I just mentioned) are young women which I think is cool.

Settling in hasn’t been smooth or easy by any means… actually pretty stressful and frustrating. UIC hasn’t been entirely clear or hospitable in helping us adjust and get to know campus. I think UIC expected our roommates to guide us through everything, but from Vivian’s, Peter’s and my experiences our roommates didn’t really know what their expectations were which really didn’t help with the moving-in process ~ things really only got done if we explicitly asked about it. But like I have said, we are being optimistic and looking forward to the rest of the semester. There is actually a dinner on Sunday for the international and exchange students and I was asked to give a speech on behalf of the international students (I accepted!). I am actually excited for that!

Anyways, I think that covers mostly everything for now! Look out for another post maybe this weekend?

Love,
Abigail