The Differences between Undergraduate Education in Civil Engineering in China and America

Furong Liu^1, and Raj V. Siddharthan²

¹Department of Geotechnical Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China

²Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89512, USA

Cite this paper:
Furong Liu and Raj V. Siddharthan. The Differences between Undergraduate Education in Civil Engineering in China and America. American Journal of Educational Research. 2016; 4(10):711-719. doi: 10.12691/education-4-10-1

Abstract

The paper analyzes the differences between undergraduate education in civil engineering in China and America. The purpose of this article is to improve the quality of undergraduate education through referring to each others’ advantages based on the findings of the comparison of the teaching plan and the course teaching. The comparison of teaching plan is conducted between four Chinese universities and four American universities. It was found that the rate of general education courses at the American universities was significantly higher than Chinese universities, and their contact hours of lab teaching for the same course are also longer than Chinese universities. The comparison on teaching are conducted between the Wuhan University and the University of Nevada, Reno in the United States by considering the instruction of the “Foundation Engineering” course. It was found that American university pays attention to discussions and learning process, and the American students often ask questions in class. The Chinese university pays attention to the explain of the textbook contents, classroom discipline and test scores. According to the comparison findings, this article suggests that Chinese university should increase the rate of generation education courses and introduce student-centered learning mode, discussion sessions, and heuristic teaching methods during classroom teaching.

Keywords:
undergraduate education curriculum system classroom teaching educational philosophy teaching methods credit system

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