• Pacers31Colts18 a minute ago

    Purdue doing the Chinese a favor. Nobody wants to go to West Lafayette.

    • cornell-grad 3 minutes ago

      Cornell grad here, comp-sci department. The big problem with foreign grad students who cannot speak english is they then have a tendency to jump into their native language during office hours.

      At Cornell, we'd have office hours discussions evolve partially or wholly into chinese or russian -- and all the english students were scratching their heads. This should never happen.

      office hours are not a private discussion -- they are group discussions with 1 TA and 5-6 students all trying to use a very precious timeslot to figure something out. All convos should be in English.

      • lingrush4 19 minutes ago

        This is good policy. Chinese students in particular seem to have terrible english language skills. An American with the same communication skills would never be admitted to a flagship university for undergrad, let alone grad school.

        I'm not sure how these Chinese students are gaming the system to get admitted, but I'm glad someone is finally doing something about it.

        • lucaslazarus 10 minutes ago

          What about this policy has anything to do with English language skills? And how is this “good policy” if it penalizes important next-generation researchers even when they speak English well? I am not denying your observation re: English language skills among Chinese graduate students—it’s just unclear what this solves that checking for English language skills during the live video interview stage does not.

          • mystraline 4 minutes ago

            Because its basically a reinterpretation of the Family Guy "Skin color palette" meme. Instead, its "how do you speak american English?"

            Admittedly, Ive also been subject to this, especially when I deal with tech support. I do have a pretty negative response when I hear an Indian-English accent. I'm reasonably sure I will be apologized at 4+ times, ignored what I say, restate what they say, "do the needful", and likewise.

          • mschild 9 minutes ago

            > gaming the system to get admitted

            Probably money. Foreign students will almost always pay sticker price.

            • gruez 3 minutes ago

              In that case why would Purdue need to ban them specifically? Just remove pressures/incentives they were putting in place to admit foreign students.

              • thaumasiotes 4 minutes ago

                > Foreign students will almost always pay sticker price.

                On the contrary, they pay the international student price, which is much higher.

            • tdb7893 40 minutes ago

              As an American who is a current grad student at Purdue this sucks. I've met great grad students from all around and it's sad that these exact sorts of really smart people have had increasing difficulty in coming to the US and staying here.

              • ls612 2 hours ago

                It would be akin to admitting German grad students in Physics in 1935. At some point Americans will need to realize that realpolitik dictates you don’t educate your enemy at scale as a policy matter, lest we discover the hard way how this will go wrong.

                • fweimer 9 minutes ago

                  In 1935, Albert Einstein relocated to Princeton permanently, so it's certainly an odd choice of a year in this context.

                  Random graduate students won't work on classified projects. The vast majority of non-classified studies will not have any impact on national security for years to come. It's unclear what the actual risks are, beyond the general distrust of foreigners.

                  • estearum an hour ago

                    Realpolitik dictates that you don't start conflicts with all of your allies for literally no reason

                    • kodyo an hour ago

                      The empire has vassals, not allies.

                      • amarcheschi 32 minutes ago

                        The empire is doing everything it can to alienate its vassals into indipendent cities-states with their own alliances

                        • dmitrygr 13 minutes ago

                          Vassals who refuse to bend the knee tend to ... not live long. Often replaced by those who bend it properly.

                        • FpUser 43 minutes ago

                          You nailed it

                          • markus_zhang an hour ago

                            Good point but not popular here.

                        • contrarian1234 39 minutes ago

                          China as the enemy is a fabricated narrative, bc culturally we seem to have a need to have another cold war, we need a "bad guy"

                          in reality theyre just economic rivals. But thebmn again so are the EU.

                          in terms of zone of political influence the competition isnt anything crazy (except for the poor taiwanese caught in the middle) and there is no clash of political ideaologies

                          In my experience Chinese in China don't typically see the US as an enemy. Its a weird framing for them

                          • themaninthedark 27 minutes ago

                            China doesn't seem to think so.

                            >"The top uniformed soldier in China, chairman of China's Central Military Commission, stated that war with the United States is inevitable," Coffman said. "That is the first time China has made that statement publicly."

                            https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/03/11/china-declare...

                            Would you say the same thing about Russia, Is that a fabricated narrative? Why or why not?

                            • thaumasiotes 8 minutes ago

                              >> "The top uniformed soldier in China, chairman of China's Central Military Commission, stated that war with the United States is inevitable," Coffman said.

                              Do we have something better than some English-language hearsay from five years ago? I tried looking for more on this and found nothing.

                              I did discover that Xu Qiliang died last June. I doubt he's going to have much influence going forward.

                            • tw04 29 minutes ago

                              Try speaking to someone from Hong Kong or Tibet and get back to me.

                              Claiming that China isn’t a danger to democracy and doesn’t have expansionist desires is insane. Look no further than their border with India.

                              • thaumasiotes 16 minutes ago

                                > Look no further than their border with India.

                                What, the one where they stage battles in which gunpowder weapons are prohibited?

                                When's the last time it moved?

                            • fhdkweig 35 minutes ago

                              The flip-side of enrolling your enemies is that they form lifelong friendships with both the local students and the country as a whole. It makes it a lot harder to hate a country once you get to know them.

                              • antonymoose 15 minutes ago

                                Xi Jinping spent significant time in America. This hasn’t done a whole lot for us or the human rights of his people.

                              • haritha-j 2 hours ago

                                Best to drop all international students then, because it seems that America considers all other nations as its enemy.

                                • kasey_junk an hour ago

                                  Umm. The best physics work in the world was being done by European academics and admitting them then and earlier was perhaps the best thing that happened both for American science & tech as well as the ability to wage war.

                                  • CamperBob2 an hour ago

                                    What? In fact, we did make it difficult for "German grad students in Physics" to immigrate here [1].

                                    Fortunately for us -- very fortunately -- we found a way to accommodate them and keep them on our side.

                                    1: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/09/22/how-ivy-leagu...

                                    • chestercheeto an hour ago

                                      The metaphor might make more sense with US in the role that was invading on pretexts to try to recover the self image of a strange looking leader.

                                    • seanmcdirmid 28 minutes ago

                                      This is sad but not unexpected. It’s a huge boon for China, since that talent is much more likely to stay in China now. Everyone thought Trump was a Russian mole, but increasingly it is the Chinese who are benefiting from his policies.