zbear:Having an emphasis on Chinese culture and language is not equivalent to being \"cheena\". There is absolutely nothing wrong with the former, whereas the latter has very negative and derogatory connotations. As a SAP school alumna, it irks me every time someone labels people from a SAP school as \"cheena\". It is downright insulting and far from the truth.UBKmom:I wonder how people select between these 2 schools of equal standard....I felt a lot is based on COP....the higher the better....how many really understand what is the different beside SAP and non-SAP...
One is 'ang moh' culture and the other is 'cheena' culture.
So it all depends on which type of environment you feel comfortable and go for it.
In any case, there is something to be said for pushing beyond comfortable boundaries. As someone who is decidedly much more fluent in English having grown up in an English speaking household, going to a SAP school, whilst out of my comfort zone, was probably beneficial for me in the long run. Much as I didn't enjoy having Chinese classes every day, it did ensure that I had some degree of language proficiency, without which I probably wouldn't have gotten my job. This is not to say that HCI is necessarily the better choice, or that RI students cannot be fluent in their mother tongue, but I did feel that the emphasis on Chinese helped me personally.