Xusheng Qiu Huang has edited and updated information in this guide.

This guide, made by Rafael Durán Sáez, might be very useful for your campus life in Jiading Campus. You can read it whether you are about to go or already arrived at Jiading Campus.

Tongji University – Jiading Campus

Hi, I am Rael Durán Sáez and I have been studying a Master in Software Engineering at Tongji University Jiading Campus. Because it is a pretty new campus, I am going to introduce you a bit about the most important things to know that will help you to live here without any kind of troubles.

Dormitory

All the foreign students are living at Building 3 of the pengyuan(朋园) dormitories of the campus. As you can see in the following image. It is quite close from the main gate of the campus, around 10 minutes by walking and 5 by bicycle.

In this dorm, there are 6 Floors without elevator, and two different type of rooms: single and double. All the rooms are equipped with:

Individual bed (per person)
Double closet (per person)
Desk and chair (per person)
Double shelf (per person)
3 wardrobes and a couple of drawers (per person)
4 plugs (Chinese and European models) and 1 Ethernet socket (per person)
Fan
Air conditioner/heating system
Shower
Toilet
Hand sink
Small water heater (to make tea, for example)
Balcony

Obviously, double rooms have twice for what I have mentioned that is per person. Almost 50% of rooms are double and the rest are single. The sooner you arrive for first time to the campus, the easier will be to choose the type of room you wish. The prices for the rooms are:

Double room: 35 RMB/night
Single room (small): 40 RMB/night
Single room (big): 45 RMB/night

* These prices are for long term stay (more than 1 month).

Actually, I have to say that the difference between small and big single rooms is not so significant, but if you want a bit more of space, is worthy to pay only 5 RMB more.

There is a kitchen at each floor of the dorm. There are a couple of microwaves and a kind of ceramic hob. Tools like frying pans, cooking pots, etc., have to been bought by yourself. In order to use the kitchen you have to get a card at the hall of the building and charge it with money. It is really cheap and the receptionist will explain you how to do.

There is electricity and hot water in all the rooms, but have to pay them too. It is not expensive to charge your balance, around 20 RMB every 2/3 weeks will be enough, depending on the amount of electricity and water that you spend. In order to pay the water and the electricity you have to use the student card, which will be provided by your school in Tongji (student card can be charged through the Tongji University application (同心云)). In order to pay the electricity and water you will have to go to the -1 floor of the dormitory, the entrance is at the rear (is quite a hidden place).

The machine showed in the last picture is the one you have to use for charging your electricity and hot water balance. The instructions and steps to follow are explained in a sheet posted on the wall just next of the machine.

Another important issue is the Wi-Fi. It is accessible in the whole dorm and some areas of the campus, like the schools, the “food street”, etc; for use it you will need to know your student ID and password.

A couple more of advices I would tell you about the visits inside the building and the food. Visits of friends, family, whoever are allowed from 8:00 – 22:00. They have to leave an ID card at the hall and they are free to enter in the dorm at the mentioned schedule. However, the doorman is not always able to differentiate the faces of the foreigners and usually falls asleep at 10 or 11 pm 😊.

There is no fridge inside the rooms. Buying a small fridge in Taobao is a good idea and it costs around 20-40 euros.

Food

The restaurant street of the campus is the one that is highlighted in the following map. Eating there is quiet cheap, depending on the restaurant and the food you take. Chinese food is cheap so you can eat for 10-20 RMB (less than 3 euros). There are places for Chinese food, hamburgers, coffees, fruit shakes, snacks, etc.

The canteen is located in the campus’s restaurant street, it is divided into two buildings, side by side. It is really big and cheap. Inside there are many different stalls so you can take different kind of food. You can only pay with your student card, which can also physically charged it here

Apart from these places, there is another area for eating and that place is the shopping mall that is 5 minutes away from the east door (at the end of the restaurant street). In this shopping mall there is a supermarket where you can buy everything that you could need (food, cleaning tools, academic stuff, etc.), there are many Chinese restaurants, McDonald’s, KTV, cinema, etc.

Sports

One of the coolest feature of the campus it is the sport facilities. You can practice almost any sport you want: football, basketball, baseball, volleyball, American football, golf, tennis, badminton, archery, a specific modality of kung fu, gym, outdoor space for body training, swimming, etc.

There are also clubs of students to practice theses sports any many more in groups and teams, they will promote themselves at the beginning of the course. Apart from sports clubs, there are also other kind of associations related to other kind of activities (Movie club, hangout club, etc.)

Transport

This campus is not as well connected, in terms of public transport, as the Siping Campus. But Tongji University makes up for this difference by offering different transport options. To reach the metro there are two ways:

1-. Exit at the North gate, walk left across the river to the ‘昌吉东路’ metro stop on line 11.

2-. Taking the bus shown on the map below, there will be the bus and its timetable. This bus will take you to the ‘上海汽车城’ metro stop on line 11. This bus takes 10-15 minutes and departures every 20-30 minutes in the morning and evening, and every 30-50 minutes on the afternoon. For the bus exact schedule go to check it on the bus stop or subscribe to 包子日 account in Wechat and you will be have the schedule in your phone. This bus is free to use. Note that this bus also picks up students from the ‘上海汽车城’ metro stop on line 11 to the Tongji University Jiading Campus.

P.D.: There is another way to get to the metro and reach the city center at the same time, taking this bus will drop you off near the main gate of the Tongji University Siping Campus. To see the timetable for this bus you will need to go to the 同心云 app. There you can even book a seat on the bus, but if you don’t manage to book it don’t worry, because only x amount of seats are offered for reservations, so you might still be able to get a seat by going to the bus in person.

In all the campus there are many blue bicycles provided by 哈喽单车. They are unlocked by using their application, what is free for students and easy to use. There is also a store for buying bicycles, costing from 15 euros to whatever you want to pay. In that place they also fix bikes. It is located just 25 meters before the mentioned Wi-Fi place.

If you need to pick a taxi I recommend you to use thee 滴滴出行 app or miniprogram that is inside of Wechat or Alipay. Those two also offers a huge bunch of services that will help you, like payment, taxis ordering, food ordering, online shopping, etc.

Schools

In the following map, you can take a look to the location of the different schools of the campus. I have added a couple of them: the correspondent to Materials Engineering and the one of Software Engineering. The library is located near the sports installations, it is enormous and English books are located on the 10^th floor.

Others

Some other interesting thins to know about:

Campus address (helpful for ordering a taxi): 上海市嘉定区曹安公路4800号
Post office: when you buy anything on Taobao, you have to enter the address I have mentioned above. Everything you buy on Internet is sent to the campus and you have to take it from one of these two different places:
- 同济大学假定接待中心极免快递 (旋转门出来左拐)

- 上海市嘉定区曹安公路4800同济大学嘉定校区朋园3号楼(East side of G building) (this is the most common place)

Buddy program: it is organized but some Chinese students in order to promote the integration of international students intro their culture, activities, meetings and parties. They celebrate parties for Halloween, Christmas and so on.
Chinese SIM Card: during the first week of the course, there will be many people promoting activities and services along the food street. You will also see people selling SIM cards with special offers. If you don’t like any of the offers, at the end of the street food, just before arriving to the sports zone, there is a place for buying SIM cards from China Mobile, I recommend contracting the service from this as it is the biggest network operators.