Many modern Chinese seem to hold to the male side of this saying, judging from the extraordinary care they take in choosing their college major in the entrance examinations. They reach such a unanimous consensus on what are good majors that even the top student can't be sure of being admitted to their course of choice: there can be hundreds of top students from all over the country knocking at the same door.

Cold and hot choices

For many years, the so-called "hot" majors - international economy and trade, IT and computer science, finance, biology and life sciences - have swept up the best students, while the "cold" majors have difficulty attracting enough students who are both qualified to attend college and willing to study the subject.

Choosing the right major can largely decide the future development of a whole career, or that is what many young people believe. "It means you can find a well-paid job after graduation," said a college student. "A graduate with a 'good' major can get a salary several times higher than one with a 'bad' major."

"Most students and their families are utilitarian when choosing their majors in college," said Xu Hongbo, a stuff member in the recruitment office of Fudan University. "There is great pressure on the examination system from students."

Everybody is just too certain about what major will be "hot", so candidates sometimes hesitate out of fear of tough competition.

Interesting incidents happen regularly in the best-known Chinese universities: the hottest majors such as computer science and journalism may have difficulty recruiting, simply because everyone assumed that competition would be too tough in these courses.

Continual adjustments

There are usually fluctuations in the examination scores of each major: if the admission score is especially high one year in a certain major, it is likely to fall the next year as students are scared off.

In Shanghai Jiaotong University this year, the highest score went to a newly-launched special course named "Information Security", while the lowest scores went to the agricultural fields. The Agriculture Institute became part of Jiaotong University in 1999, with the departments and disciplines going through rearrangements and adjustments afterwards.

"The organization of academic departments is closely related to the demands of society," said Qian Qicheng, director of the Recruiting Office at the university. The Agriculture Institute recruited just over 200 students this year, less than one third of the number before the adjustment.

Antiquarian and Museum Studies has always been a department which receives little attention at Fudan University. "A friend of mine was allotted to the department because her score was not high enough to be admitted in the department she chose," said a graduate of Fudan. "She had great difficulty in finding a job after graduation. She had to work as a history teacher in a middle school in the suburbs."

Another "cold" discipline at Fudan is Nursing Science, as few students want to spend five years at one of the best-known universities in China only to become a nurse at graduation.

Nevertheless, staff members at Fudan university believed that talent in this field will be in great demand in the future, even if the public is not aware of it now.

More choices

Students have a second chance to change to their favourite majors in college. And universities like Fudan are offering a large variety of elective courses. "To build a firm base is the primary goal of undergraduate studies," Xu said. "Many students realize the importance of post-graduate studies, and view the undergraduate stage as the basic step."

The number of students to be recruited and the courses they will follow are issues planned by each university and reported to the Ministry of Education, with the whole recruitment procedure being carried out according to very detailed regulations.

"A student who fails to be accepted by his or her first-choice course will be passed onto their second choice department, and three points will be deducted from their score by the department," said Qian of Jiaotong University.

Each student can list six choices when filling in their application form. "My son's first choice was a major in advertising in the Journalism School," said Zhang Jianping, whose son was a freshman at Fudan University. "But his score didn't reach the acceptance level of the shool, and he went to his third choice major, Administration Management." Even though he wasn't able to enter his favourite department, everybody said that "Administration Management" was an even better course, with superior job opportunities ahead.

(Shanghai Star September 26, 2002)