Freshman military

There are 3,600 students in this year's freshman class. Freshmen don't attend class the month of September, but instead are required to take a month of rigorous military training on campus to teach them "hard work and discipline needed to succeed in their university studies". You see them in uniform everywhere (boys and girls), being drilled, marching, shouting in unison, and lots of sweating. No one complains; they're just grateful to be a part of the small percentage of Chinese students who survived the myriads of layers of cuts and made it into a university. Here are some views of a few companies after they were dismissed to go eat dinner. The evening we took these pictures was the evening they all took their freshman English placement exams (to determine which level of English class they'd be assigned when they started classes.) The English Department Dean asked Dave and me to be the voices for the English dialogues the students would listen to for their exam. After the dialogue, we'd ask a series of questions for the students to answer to determine their placement. We recorded the test dialogue the day before and the CD was played throughout campus in various classrooms for all 3,600 freshmen. We were asked if we'd also record the required English listening exam all juniors need to take in December. It's pretty dandy to be surrounded by all these seasoned Chinese educators, yet we've got the yanky twang they need in order to be considered English-speaking experts.