Job Discussion Forums

[Songbird]

In light of the discussions in 'Isn't it Weird...?', I thought I was post a quirk review. I don't expect anyone to respond, but this can be 'filed' away for future teachers who perhaps search for this school (not that they rarely do... ).

This is the Baoji University of Arts and Sciences in, well, Baoji ( 3 hrs west of Xian).

I came here after being referred to this school by another foreign teacher who had to turn the job down (she already had a contract and was getting on and retired at the end of the year). This was in August 2006, so now I'm on my 2nd year here.

Apartments comfortable (no higher than 6 floors), but you live on the old campus, teach on the new. School provides free shuttle, takes about 10ish minutes to get there. Students are nice but of average skill level, like a 3rd tier college. FAO is really nice, you'll get paid on time, or earlier if he has to go away etc. Young but works too hard!

Currently there's 1 VSO teacher left- she will leave this coming winter and I believe replaced by a whole lot of Americans. Besides her and me, there's a Filippino and Ghanian, possibly not staying beyond next year. However, all teachers I have known here (some besides these people) have all renewed their contracts, we have all been happy here.

Baoji itself- railway station, small enough that you're not going to spend hours travelling and changing buses to go places, but large enough for 2 KFC's, Macdonalds, a coffeeshop, Walmart opening (along with a 3rd KFC & Pizza Hut) maybe this coming Spring Festival (not sure but they're building now), can buy some BASIC 'western' food here like Milo & pasta etc but for the rest you need to go to Xian (we even have a new bullet train, now takes just 1hr 15 mins!!).

There's the lowdown. I guess the only real negative thing going is the salary, it's not huge, but you shouldn't be offered less than 4000/mth. Dead easy to get by on this. This is negotiable with the FAO dep on exp etc. But this is a comfy place.

File it away for future reference!

[DistantRelative]

IMO Baoji is actually a nice small sized city. It has a few decent outdoor pools and other places to visit and enjoy. Not an overabundance of foreigners, so you might experience the whole living in a fishbowl thing. Also some pretty areas to do some hiking in nearby. The few times I went out nightlife was fun. A few months back they started running a really nice high speed train between Baoji and Xi'an. Only takes an hour and a quarter station to station, for 50rmb.

Zhuhao,

Shawn