First Awardee of QS Five-Stars in China Goes to English Major of College of Foreign Languages, USST

Recently, the English major of College of Foreign Languages, including two tracks of English (Translation for Science and Technology) and English (Sino-US Program), has been rated for Excellence and awarded the QS Five-Stars in Program Strength category audit, which witnessed the first undergraduate major to win QS Five-Stars in USST that becomes the first to win QS-Five Stars for undergraduate major in China.

QS, along with US News and THE, is known as one of the three ranking systems among the world and is one of the authoritative rankings recognized by the Chinese education circles. QS Stars, a rating system,  developed based on the indicators of universities or majors that students are most concerned about. By assessing the strengths of universities or majors in all aspects in an objective and detailed way, QS Stars provides a reference for students to choose universities and majors. In China, QS Stars has rated higher education institutions such as City University of Hong Kong, School of Management at Zhejiang University, School of Management at University of Science and Technology of China and School of Management at Xi’an Jiaotong University, the English major of USST is nevertheless the first undergraduate major in China to be awarded QS Stars Five-Stars.

College of Foreign Languages started an application for QS Stars rating in 2021 and built up a professional team led by Professor Liu Qin, dean of the college and head of the English departments, which is responsible for faculty coordination and data collection. In April of 2022, the English major was formally assessed by QS Stars in accordance with stringent rating rules on seven categories of indicators, including “Completion Rate”, “Employability Rate”, “Student Satisfaction”, “Faculty and Student Ratio”, “Enrollment Rate”, “Internationalization” and “National and International Accreditations”. Finally, the English major acquired perfect scores in the four categories of “Completion Rate”, “Employability Rate”, “Student Satisfaction”, “Faculty and Student Ratio” and achieved the highest overall rating of QS Five-Stars under the subject category of English Language & Literature.

Currently, the English major of College of Foreign Languages is accredited as the First-class Undergraduate Major of Shanghai, implementing the “One Body with Two Wings” training model integrated with English, science and technology, and business to cultivate advanced comprehensive talents with a solid foundation in English language and with strong practical capabilities to the fields of scientific and technological translation and international trade and business. Over the past years, the faculty has deepened the comprehensive reform of talents cultivation, brought into play the advantages of the major, and continuously strengthened the quality in teaching and students training. The successful accreditation of QS Five Stars marks a solid step in the process of internationalization of the College of Foreign Languages, which is crucial for explicating the goal of training talents, promoting international exchange and cooperation, and improving the quality of professional education.