Discussion keeps the world turning.
Gaokao is done, but the real pressure cooker just fired up.
What to study?
What to become?
This year, Chinese universities are tearing up the old rulebook.
They're pushing crossover programs, flexible tracks and a radical idea.
Your major is not your destiny.
So if the job market keeps shape-shifting as it has been, does picking a subject even matter anymore?
And what does a smart choice look like when nobody knows what's coming next?
Coming to you live from our studios in Beijing, this is Roundtable.
I'm Steve Hatherly.
Thank you so much for being with us today.
And for the show, I'm with Fei-Fei and Yushan.
First up.
Gaokao may be over congratulations on that, by the way but for millions of students and families, a new decision is just beginning.
What to study and what kind of future to build.
This year's university admissions reveal something bigger than expanded enrollment or trendy new majors.
From brain, computer science and embodied intelligence to agricultural robotics and business AI.
Universities are redesigning how education works.
More interdisciplinary programs, more flexibility to switch paths, more room for experimentation, along with a growing belief that one major does not define one's career.
Fei-Fei and Yushan, good afternoon to you both.
So if the world of work keeps changing, Then how are we supposed to know what it is we are doing with our lives?
It's always a time of stress and excitement.
The Gaokao wrapped up recently.
I think between the 7th and 10th of June is when the students finished up, and now they're waiting for their marks, for their grades.
Yeah, for the past few weeks I'm sure all of these marvelous students have been having such a great time getting their driver's license as a start, and also sleep throughout the day to just relax.
Oh, is that what everybody does when the boom, when the cow cows finished off, to get your driver's license.
That's where the car training centers, they get their best selling seasons.
Oh, I see.
Yep.
But also nowadays, as you mentioned, Steve.
It's now the time that we move on to the next big phase, for these students and their families too, which is to wait for scores and prepare university applications.
That comes right afterwards.
Usually the score release days vary across China, but most students are able to check their results in late June, around this time of the year.
For example, students in Beijing and South China's Guangdong province can access their scores starting on June 25th, while students in Shanghai and northeast China's Heilongjiang province can check theirs a little earlier, on June the 23rd and 24th respectively.
And these data are from the news in China.
So basically, it is a time that we really kind of work on the mentality of deciding...
I guess for the students, if you wrap up between June 7th and June 10th and then you get your scores from the 23rd to the 25th, then you've got a good couple of weeks to kind of relax a little bit.
And not think about anything.
Yeah, exactly.
And then when the 23rd to the 25th comes, then that anxiety starts to build up again.
Yeah, because when it comes to, you know, getting your scores finally from Gaokao, it's not as simple as you know.
Now I get my score and then I can apply to the university that I want to go to.
And then naturally choose the major that I want to study for the next four years.
It's more complicated than that.
And that is also one of the source of stress for a lot of students and families.
And that's because in Beijing, university applications run from June 27th to July 1st.
And then that's followed by applications for junior college programs.
That happens on the 24th and 25th of July.
That's only a couple less than a week time.
It's four days.
For you to, first of all, get to know your position in the region.
For instance, if I am a student taking Gaokao in the city of Beijing, after getting my own scores, the city will also release their cut-off score, meaning the minimum score required to be considered for different universities here in this particular region.
Sorry, when does that information get released?
That's normally a little bit earlier than your score was released.
So then, what you're saying is Because I guess what it looks like on the surface is you wait for your your gaokao scores and then immediately you have to make some very quick decisions about where you're going to apply but what you're saying is that there is a little bit of planning ahead because that you have access to some information, so it gives students some idea of what they're going to do when they do finally get their scores.
Yeah, because when it comes to universities, for instance, China has more than 3000 universities, colleges or vocational schools.
And we also have more than 800 different majors in these institutions.
So thinking about navigating Within a couple of days, navigating these different majors and lists of universities will be very stressful.
But for a lot of people they will start to have a bigger picture of what kind of tier of university that I have a chance in.
For instance, normally my score is 500.
You know, the total score is 750.
My normal score is about 500.
So 500 normally means these are the list of universities that I have a chance in.
Can I ask a question?
What's considered a pretty decent Gaokao score?
Well, if you ask me, if any score higher than 600 is considered that you can be perhaps chosen by one of those higher tier Chinese universities across China?
And normally, I think the national average most of the time is about 400 students. more or less.
But if you want to get enrolled in one of the most prestigious, most best of the universities in China, depending on the regions and provinces you live, some of them requires higher more than 650, some of them lower more than 600 would be enough.
It depends.
It depends on what you want to do, too, I suppose.
All right.
So let's just briefly talk about some of the new majors this year.
This is from the 2026 undergraduate major catalog.
It was released by China's Ministry of Education.
And 38 new majors have been added this year.
It gives students more choices than they've ever had before.
And there are a wide range of emerging fields, one of which is brain, computer science and technology.
Yeah, we see new majors coming and old majors being eliminated from time to time.
But this year these 38 new majors really kind of brightened my eyes in terms of how niche they used to be and how popular they have become, the potential to be in the future.
So yeah, you mentioned brain computer science and technology.
This is a kind of a technology that we might not have known too well before but, simply put, it's to imagine that one day you may be able to control devices using your brain signals alone.
So the brain-computer interface technology aims to create a direct communication channel between the human brain and machines, rather than, like how we do it now, through a keyboard, remote control, a touchscreen or even your voice.
So this year Tianjin University is actually taking the lead to receive official approval from the Ministry of Education here in China to launch the country's first undergraduate program dedicated specifically to bring science and technology.
Yeah, and it's not... When we hear BCI, right, we think...
I think it's all about hospitals and medicine and it is, but it's not only about that.
I was watching a video this morning where you put on this brain computer interface device.
That looks like it's a headband with a hockey puck at the back of it.
That's what it looks like to a Canadian.
And you put it on and then you.
It interacts with your brain and you can use your eyes to click on things on your TV.
So you're thinking about I'm going to type certain words and then they start to appearing on the screen instead of you typing it out.
Yeah.
So BCI study, it's not just for medical stuff, which is again yeah, it's a major part of it, but it's for everyday use, for our future as well.
Yeah, and previously there's been news on how I believe it's university students from Tsinghua University, which is one of the top in China.
They were having these students to sit in the meeting hall, maybe watching a movie or a performance, I couldn't recall, but They were wearing a wig-like device.
By wig, I mean the film of the wig without the hair.
And it's all connected by little dots, little pieces.
And it was meant to monitor their brain activity while they were perceiving visual signals.
So something like that is contributing to the research of human brain and how young brains are functioning when they see certain things.
So yeah, for education, for sure.
Yeah, so for this particular undergraduate program, when it comes to brain, computer science and technology, that means students need to learn more than technology or health or medicine, but they need to learn more Particularly, they sometimes need to learn brain medicine, for instance, and also even they need to look at some of the devices that you can use to implement this kind of technology.
So it's more than, it's very interdisciplinary.
Yeah, ethics too.
Yeah, you can't put them under medical school or, you know, computing science school.
It's sort of both.
Yeah.
Another one that kind of caught my attention was digital tourism.
Yeah, that was very, very interesting.
This sounds fun, right?
This is the first new.
It's called Digital Cultural Tourism and it's the first new undergraduate major added to the tourism management category in over a decade.
They've chosen four universities as kind of the first batch of schools to offer the program.
And it's designed to meet industry demands like AI transformation in cultural tourism or the innovation space or innovative development of smart tourism.
Digital product design.
Now, what does all of that mean?
Well, it's about using AI to make travel smarter and cooler and more personal.
So you could think of, like AI apps that build custom itineraries for your vibe of your vacation, or virtual avatars that might guide you through a museum, or stuff like that.
So it's how AI will be implemented into the tourism industry.
Kind of cool.
It's so cool to think about it.
Especially, one of the four universities taking the lead on this very major is Beijing International Studies University, which is the university I did my bachelor degree at.
So back then 10 years ago, when we think about the tourism management major, they always tease themselves the students under that major that we're going to work in tourism companies in the future and designing little brochures.
For you guys to choose which product you want.
Look at where they are heading nowadays.
It's a little bit different now.
Yeah, I think in the past, when we were talking about students studying tourism, it's more of an economy-related major.
But now apparently you need to get some knowledge about technology algorithms as well.
Agricultural robotics is on the list of the new ones.
We've kind of touched on this on Roundtable in the past about how you know, drones are being used for crop.
What's the word I'm looking for?
So.
Crop land management.
Harvesting management.
Anti-pesticide.
Pesticides, thank you.
Spraying and things like that.
You have no idea how big of an impact it's making.
So last month, I was in eastern China's Zhejiang province.
I was in the city of Jiaxing, but I landed in one of their smaller counties or towns.
Is it like a smaller city?
So I was standing right in the middle of a few dozens of acres of wheat field.
And then my interviewee, which is a gentleman who farms that piece of land, told me He alone manages this 10 acres of wheat field.
I was asking how.
So he showed me- One person.
One person with perhaps two on the most of assistants.
He showed me a whole satellite monitored map that can- literally see which area of their field is in lack of water, which area is soaked in water, which area is not receiving sufficient sunlight and is growing a bit slower and greener than the rest.
So we arrived at a little bit earlier than their harvest season, and that data means everything to them.
So that's how fast these technologies are developing nowadays.
And he even told me that there are a lot of young people in this field now.
Instead of the stereotypical view of how elders, farmers are working... in person in the field.
Farming's gotten cool.
So these are the talents we're trying to cultivate for that very purpose.
I actually interviewed somebody who designed new robots for different harvesting activities.
I think he designed robots, he was trying to design a robot for harvesting fruits.
Because normally when it comes to fruits, they are very fragile and soft, easy to break.
So most of them are handpicked.
But now of course, scientists are thinking maybe we can also use robots to help farmers to pick these fruits.
But he told me that when he was trying to study agricultural robotics you know the major didn't exist at that time they have to search for different textbooks, even because under the school of agriculture there's no such thing as robotic design.
They need to go, for example, to aerospace department and borrow their textbook and to learn about, you know, different ways of design robots.
And they even have to look at materials as well.
That's another department's theory and textbooks.
So they are searching across the universities for different textbooks and theories so that they can use themselves to design a robot that can be used.
So he said you know, it's a very well exciting but also frustrating experience when you try to learn something and found easy to use theory, but there is none in theory.
So it sounds like universities are responding to the job market now, in the sense that it seems like the universities are recognizing the problem that your friend was encountering, that you were in the agricultural department but you wanted to study robotics.
You had to visit a completely different department in order to find information that was pertinent.
Now all of these things are being put together, and I guess that's a reflection of what's required now in the job market.
Yeah, because universities they are increasingly preparing the students to work across fields instead of just focusing in one.
And also it spreads out to three big perspectives.
The first is that jobs nowadays they are becoming more interdisciplinary, meaning that um, you can't just learn one thing and expect that qualifies to do what you want to do right.
You need to combine it with multiple other things there.
Then that leads to the second perspective, which is the more technology driven jobs we see jobs traditionally done manually are increasingly combining sharp technology, niche technology, and that's no longer a news anymore sometimes.
And then the more closely tied with national priorities as well because, After all, we're coming up, we're rolling out new majors for good reason, for helping out with the talent supply in key perspectives that the country needs the most.
So it's not just about, oh, this major sounds cool, let's create it.
It's about where to put these talents after they graduate.
This is not the way it was Feifei, when you and I and so many other people graduated from university.
Well, let me speak for myself.
I shouldn't speak for you.
For me, when I graduated from university, I didn't think about that stuff.
Like oh, I need to be trained in multiple fields so that I can apply to various sectors of various industries.
And in fact going back to before that, when I was choosing my major the only thing I mean I was an economics major in the beginning in university.
I switched it over to English after my second year because I found that's where my passion was, which means that's where I wanted to study and put my efforts, but I didn't think about anything about interdisciplinary studies.
That's true.
Right?
Yeah, me too.
Like job when I was applying to a university, just getting my scores and thinking about what majors and what university or even what city I want to live in the future.
Jobs or career path in the future is definitely not on the top of the list that I'm thinking.
I'm more of thinking about, you know, do this university has a good dormitory?
What about the food there?
What about them?
What kind of major?
I try to apply to journalism but, to be frank, As a 17, 18 year old, I have no idea what journalism means, what courses I'm going to study by enrolled into journalism department.
What jobs maybe a reporter?
But what does a reporter do?
I have, frankly, no idea what that means.
Well, I mean, I wonder if this makes it easier for students or more difficult, because it's a stressful time of year now because you're getting your Gal-Cal scores back.
You have a limited amount of time. to choose which school, which major you would like to apply for.
And it feels like the majors are becoming more specific.
So that's why I'm wondering if this makes it easier on the students or if this makes it actually harder on the students, because everything is being narrowed down and almost laser focused now.
It's just more decisions to make comparing with days or years before.
And in my understanding it's a way of customizing things that suits the students better and also kind of guarantee, before you're even in that major in the university, to know that you kind of want or you are needed in this major and that you are qualified for studying this major.
And on that notion we also have a nationwide service system that is set up for general guidance, just for these students and their families too.
So on June 16th this year, China's Ministry of Education launched the newly upgraded version of the Sunshine College application Yangguang Zhiyuan information service system that's designed to provide students and their parents with very comprehensive guidance for their university application.
So this platform?
It serves as an official college application support system and it draws on a large pool of verified governmental data, including admission data, like the amount of students enrolled, accepted in certain major in certain university, if that's where you're aiming to apply for, and also student records, employment outcomes after they graduate, stuff like that.
So this is a pool that you can refer to, a digital pool you can refer to.
It's not completely new, though.
It was rolled out first in June 2024, but nowadays it's becoming more smart.
Yeah, supposed to be focused more on the students' real needs, this upgraded version.
You know, 10 years ago it used to be an offline version, which is a thick book, as thick as a dictionary.
You remember that we used to purchase it from the school.
Yeah, and also my mom bought an extra three different volumes that introduced every universities and their top majors.
It literally tells you what university can offer you to choose.
Yeah, and also... In those books.
I think my mom spent half a year studying those three books.
Three months for my dad.
And also the big booklet about what scores will get your kid into what kind of university and if...
For instance, she didn't get enrolled into the ideal ones that she wants.
What is the backup plan for you?
And when it comes to majors, what is this major?
And what does that mean?
And what kind of job that will mean in the future?
In the meantime, you're like, well, what's on their lunch menu?
Yeah.
I was thinking about their canteens and dormitories.
Listen, you're not alone.
In Halifax, Nova Scotia, Dalhousie University, King's College, and St.
Mary's University are all pretty much right next to each other.
King's College is a journalism school.
Dal, it's called Dal.
Dalhousie is famous for medicine and other great programs, really good schools.
St.
Mary's is more focused on the business side of things.
So coming out of high school, I was trying to choose, you know, which school I wanted to go to.
I had qualified for all three, Dal and St.
Mary's and King's College.
So I was like, hmm, journalism, medicine, nope, definitely not that.
But other things at Dal.
So I narrowed it down to Dal and St.
Mary's.
Now, St.
Mary's University has a tunnel.
Hmm.
And it connects the dorms to the study classes, to the classrooms, to the library and the canteen.
Underground, underground.
That is so cool.
Now i don't know if you've ever experienced a halifax, nova scotia winter time before, but i have and i was like wait a minute, i don't have to go outside.
So that's what saint mary's students do.
So they wake up in the morning in their pajamas and they go to class, oftentimes wearing their pajamas.
It's a big plus.
Because you don't have to go outside.
I was like, sign me up.
Awesome.
But do you know what students do now in China?
They simply put in their Gaokao score and ranking and the system combines multiple factors for them, including the historical admission data and student satisfaction rating.
Even some side note, for what are some of the comments from the students from this university on how it supplies their students?
Yeah, so these information are all provided for you.
You don't even need to spend too much time on researching just which one fits the most.
What about this, though?
And I want to make this point about the specific majors, too, is that you...
When you have a major like English literature or history or something like that, it's very broad.
And you're not necessarily defining your future.
But when you have a major like agricultural robotics, yeah that's.
It feels like you're headed down a very specific road, and i wonder how the students feel about that.
Does it make them feel like if they choose this major today, are they choosing their future path and it's locked in and it can't be changed?
Of course not.
Thinking about my major, I studied English literature, but more on the linguistic side of things.
And now, looking back at all my friends back in college, I think only 10 of us are still doing something related to the English language.
The rest of my friends have switched to different paths, different career paths.
And even to the point that they said to me that well, I start to forget about all the English language, language that we studied four years for, even though I have that degree in my hand.
But currently maybe my language proficiency is not as good as most university students in China, because I don't use any English in my job anymore.
So some of them are lawyers, some of them are journalists reporters, some of them are helping design themed parks all around the world.
Oh, cool.
That's very cool.
It has nothing to do.
Well, maybe English is a big plus, but it's definitely not the skills that the university taught us.
So I think, when it comes to choosing a major, it's more about opening up the world to you, but it's not defining in any way of the future that you're going down.
And especially when it comes to broad majors like English literature, Chinese literature or even computer science.
I think computer science is also a very broad subject currently as well.
It's very comforting, I think, for the students to know that you're not locked.
No, and also we talked about how new things are being launched regarding Gaokao and the majors, but there's one thing that I seem to think that throughout the time, that hasn't been changed at all, which is the major you choose.
Of course, you mentioned it doesn't determine things.
And, unlike how many young students may think that oh Gaokao is the end of hard working and studying, it's actually quite the opposite.
It's the start of a new beginning, where you start from that major and leads you to millions of other possibilities.
And of course, that's also a good news to hear that many universities nowadays they are very open minded in terms of how you can transfer to different majors after you are graduated.
Maybe enrolled into that specific measure that you're not happy with.
Xiamen University, they enrolled their policy in 2025.
And since 2017, Peking University also eliminated the requirement for departmental approval when students wish to transfer.
So, yeah, things are being made.
Easier for the young students nowadays.
So I think, just follow your instinct and see where your interest and passion lands at, and also leverage where you can get your score.
There are micro programs and majors to.
The Ministry of Education issued a notice to promote the employment capabilities of university graduates in March of last year.
What they did was they focused on urgent talent market demands.
And they proposed to guide local universities in partnerships with enterprises, with businesses, to develop 1000 micro-major programs and 1000 vocational training courses.
Meaning, you're getting exactly what the market is looking for in terms of jobs.
You're getting programs designed specifically for that.
And again, that's comforting.
That's comforting for the students in the sense that yep, you don't need to stress about changing your major and you don't need to worry about if you don't know what you want to do.
I had no idea.
Was more concerned about the noodles.
Rather than my textbooks.
And I didn't want to get cold.
But look, here we are on Roundtable today.
So my point is if you don't know what you want to do and you're looking around at your friends and you think, oh my gosh, my friends have got it all figured out.
No, they don't.
They're pretending sometimes.
Or even if they do, even if they do, don't worry about it.
Choose a major.
Get in there.
Work hard.
Study hard.
Find out if you like it.
Find out if that's where your passion is.
And if it's not... Switch.
Switch it up.
And you might switch it up into something that's better for you.
And when you get out and you start your first job, try it out.
And if you don't like it...
Find another one that's better for you.
This is what life is all about, yeah.
It's also the luxury of youth.
When you were young, you have endless possibilities.
I'm not saying if you're older, you don't.
It's just difficult.
It's a harder decision to make.
But when you're 20-year-olds you just entered into college or the career path it's easier to make this kind of transition and it's easier to just expand your horizons and to see different possibilities, not only here in China, not only in one city, but all across the world.
Yes, because when you're an adult, you are in a prison of your own choices.
Yes,
