Young Taiwanese people’s obsession with National Taiwan University (NTU) is increasing, with many top students this year choosing to do an unpopular major at NTU over a popular one at National Chengchi University (NCCU).
The results of this year’s College Entrance Exam, released on Monday, show the entrance level to NTU’s drama department has, for the first time, surpassed that of the journalism department at NCCU, an indication that high-scoring students would rather attend a not-so-prestigious department of NTU than a well-known department at NCCU.
Observers said that many top students tried their best to “get admitted to NTU” regardless of their personal interests or talents, presuming that they will enter the top university first and then be able to transfer to another department later.
As a result, the entry thresholds of such NTU departments as the department of geography and the department of forestry have risen above the levels of previous years.
A clear indicator is the entry-level score of NTU’s department of drama, which surged higher than the entry-level scores of the departments of journalism and advertising at NCCU.
Seven of the top 10 engineering choices for this year’s freshmen were NTU departments, including the top six choices for all engineering freshmen.
On the other hand, National Chiao Tung University’s (NCTU) department of computer science and information engineering, which was ranked fifth in Taiwan last year, fell to seventh place this year. The same department at National Tsing Hua University fell out of the top 10.
NTU remained the top choice for high-scoring high-school graduates this year as all spots in the various departments in the university’s different colleges and schools were filled as soon as the entrance exam results were out.
A good example of the ever-growing “NTU complex” among Taiwanese students is that the minimum score for entering NTU’s department of drama — 472.7 — surged ahead of the score for attending the department of journalism of NCCU, which was 471.8.
The entry level for NTU’s department of meteorology also rose above nine other departments in other famous universities, including the nanotechnology department of NCTU and the electric and electronics department of National Cheng Kung University.
Students are placing NTU above all else, indicating that their “NTU complex” has grown stronger, said Liu Chun-hao, a student counselor.
NCCU president Wu Se-hwa (吳思華) said that choosing NTU’s drama department over his school’s journalism department was an indication of students planning to focus on their majors only when they follow a master’s program.
He said he blamed the phenomenon in part on the Ministry of Education’s unfair allocation of NT$3 billion (US$103.6 million) per year to NTU in its “five-year NT$50 billion program.”
Only NT$200 million is given to NCCU annually, he said.
This distribution of educational funding leads people to think that NTU has abundant resources, he said, adding that the government should not adopt a policy which “singles out” and “prioritizes” a particular university.
Why do students love NTU?
Hung Tai-hsiung (洪泰雄), director of the NTU student registration division, said the university has a full range of academic studies and has a 50 percent success rate when students who did not know their interests in high school want to transfer to a more appropriate field of study.
Chang Kuo-pao (張國保), director of Ming Chuan University’s Institute of Education, said choosing universities over departments creates a disadvantage for students when they graduate and have to make career decisions.
Chou Chu-ying (周祝瑛), a professor of education at NCCU, said that by giving preferential treatment to NTU — where nearly 80 percent of the students are from middle and upper-class families — the government was only taking care of “members of the elite families.”
“This is not good for the country,” she said.
She said the current situation is like “NTU driving a Mercedes-Benz while all other universities are riding on bicycles.”
TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT: A US Air Force KC-135 tanker came less than 1,000 feet of an EVA plane and was warned off by a Taipei air traffic controller, a report said A US aerial refueling aircraft came very close to an EVA Airways jet in the airspace over southern Taiwan, a military aviation news Web site said. A report published by Alert 5 on Tuesday said that automatic dependent surveillance–broadcast (ADS-B) data captured by planfinder.net on Wednesday last week showed a US Air Force KC-135 tanker “coming less than 1,000 feet [305m] vertically with EVA Air flight BR225 as both aircraft crossed path south of Taiwan” that morning. The report included an audio recording of a female controller from the Taipei air traffic control center telling the unidentified aircraft that it was
A series of discussions on the legacy of martial law and authoritarianism are to be held at the Taipei International Book Exhibition this month, featuring findings and analysis by the Transitional Justice Commission. The commission and publisher Book Republic organized the series, entitled “Escaping the Nation’s Labyrinth of Memory: What Authoritarian Symbols and Records Can Tell Us,” to help people navigate narratives through textual analysis and comparisons with other nations. The four-day series is to begin on Thursday next week with a discussion between commission Chairwoman Yang Tsui (楊翠), Polish-language translator Lin Wei-yun (林蔚昀), and Polish author and artist Pawel Gorecki comparing
MOVING OUT: A former professor said that rent and early education costs in Taipei are the nation’s highest, which makes it difficult for young people to start families The population of Taipei last year fell to the lowest in 23 years due to high rent, more transportation options and the expansion of northern cities into a single metropolis, academics and city officials said on Monday. Data released this month by the Ministry of the Interior showed that the capital was home to 2,602,418 people last year, down 42,623 from 2019. The decline is second only to 1993, when the population fell by 42,828 people, while Taipei’s population was the lowest it has been since 1997. Taipei saw the biggest drop among the six special municipalities, while Taoyuan led the group in
A legislator yesterday called for authorities to investigate the sale of Chinese-made, Internet-connected karaoke machines containing “propaganda songs.” Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) said she was approached by a person who had discovered Chinese patriotic songs such as My Motherland (我的祖國) — which is commonly referred to as China’s “second national anthem” — in Chinese-made karaoke devices sold in Taiwan. The machines are popular, as they can connect to the Internet, providing access to thousands of songs, she said. One retailer, who asked to remain anonymous, said that the machines first entered the local market about three years ago, starting with