Actually USTC is very beautiful.

We have 4 campuses: High-tech, main campus, a high school, and an island. The main campus can be divided into east campus, west campus, mid campus, and north campus. I live right now in high-tech. The high-tech campus is around 15 km west from the main campus.

High-tech Campus

The hallmark of the high-tech campus is the library.

Sunset

More Sunset

Rain

Night

Luna

Stars

You can see our library from the top of Dashu Mountain if you zoom in 15-25x

IAT is an open campus just north of our campus. But again, there is nobody there, nothing to see there.

This is the view from my dorm. On the left side of the campus I think is an Iflytek company? I don't know, I don't care.

Snow

Spring • Flowers for you

Dandelions

Swan

Sakura

Rose

Here is a DJI drone footage of the high-tech campus

Graduation party

Вставай, милая, довольно спати,
Вставай, милая, довольно спати,
Як ми гуляли, будем гуляти...
Не встану, милий, гуляй з другою...
Не встану, милий, гуляй з другою,
Бо моє серце вже під земльою.

(Сонце низенько, Ukrainian Folk Song)

If you can't read Ukrainian:

Get up, my dear, enough sleep,
Get up, my dear, enough sleep,
As we walked, we will walk...
I won't get up, my dear, go for a walk with the other...
I won't get up, my dear, go for a walk with the other,
Because my heart is already underground.

(The Sun is Low)

Main Campus

The school fruit shop in the high-tech campus is managed by only 4 people, an old man Guo and his son, an old woman, a young woman, opening from 7 or 8 am till midnight, 7 days a week (maybe slightly earlier on weekends?). They constantly need 2-3 people working there, so everybody was working like 80 hours a week, but that's not including logistics or buying the fruits. Every time I go into the fruit store, a familiar voice from old Guo would say, "Student Chen, where have you been? Library?", "Student Chen, have you eaten?". He didn't usually know every student, probably because I came so often. It was the only fruit shop in this campus though. The 2 other main campuses had each 2 fruit shops, they close slightly earlier than midnight, more like 10 pm.

The area surrounding USTC's main campus was a total mess, filled with dirty restaurants dumping water, aggressive motorcycles, and cars parking all over the pavement. Then recently there are massive construction projects around the campus, but I probably won't be in Hefei to see it. Someone told me the north campus is mostly filled with Global South students, and I have been there only once. Back then when I was living near the main campus, I would run like 3 km down south and back. You can just run to south around 1 km or so, it's all downhill that way, and you reach XiuNing road. During covid when I went running and I saw the Linear Algebra professor walking there. An English teacher from America (who left USTC right after zero-covid) said he lived there too. Running east on Xiuning road, and there is a continuous green space extending all the way to Qujie. I cycled there several times as well, and you can head a little south into Qimen road after that, and continue all the way into the east of Hefei.

There is a new year party, which, unfortunately but expectedly, excludes all Chinese students. So it turned out to be a global south party. A friend from Algeria invited me, so I went there.

I had a photo with the beautiful woman from Ghana.

Oh, and by the way there is a yearly International Cultural Festival, though it is a total dirty mess. I volunteered there. There would be a million people everywhere.

Island

The island used to be open to the public, then it became heavily guarded, just like most of the Chinese society these days. You have to register to visit the Hefei Science and Technology museum just to visit the island. But it seems like few people are interested in the island anyway except some nerds working there. You have to walk a lot because shared bikes weren't allowed. The island itself, however, is very green and beautiful.

However, there are many Soviet books inside the museum. It is the first time I discovered Russian books here.

Пушкин/Писатели народов СССР

Ленин

История народного хозяйства СССР

Курс высшей математики (смирнов)

If I have a choice I would've probably attended MGU. I want to have a lot of those old yellow books if I can!