Chinese university offers elective dating course

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A Chinese university in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan Province has made make its electives more practical and attractive to students, with a course titled “Art on Getting Along with Opposite Sex” released on the elective curricula.

Gao Fei, the founder and instructor of the course with Southwest Jiaotong University hoped that students can have an easier and more pleasant time while they are dating, and can better manage their relationships.

Gao Fei, the founder and instructor of the course with Southwest Jiaotong University, lectures students in the dating class. /CNS Photo

The course, offered in the fall semester, grades three to four students at a time using a three-part curriculum, covering 30 different modules. The students are to get an overall knowledge of dating and marriage. Gao says “camps” students are taught how to meet the right person, how to date and how the two persons can build towards a marriage.

“This course is aimed to let students have a right attitude toward dating and help them go through healthily,” Gao told to Beijing News and explained the concepts of psychology and law are used to help solve problems during dating and let students foresee possible conflicts after marriage.

Students are putting the theory of dating skills into practice by performing in class. /CNS Photo

According to Gao, this course developed from the psychology of love, an elective which leans towards theory and has been set up for around five years. Compared to the theory-oriented course, Gao's dating class depends more on scene simulation.

In a similar class, Gao invited her students to perform and let them have a firsthand experience on the concepts they learned in class.

“In a given circumstance, boys and girls exchange words with each other and experience the intimacy between each other. Only if they can understand the other side, they will be in a fit state to start dating,” said Gao.

To successfully pass through the course, students don't necessarily need to meet their boyfriend or girlfriends by the end of the course. Instead, they need to submit their post-class record of observation and class experience report. In-class discussions and performances also count toward the course credits.

Students practice in class. /CNS Photo‍

“There exists a shy face-to-face look between lovers,” Cao Xin stated his finding after he had observed on campus. These students can observe other lovers' facial expressions and gesture, but they cannot directly talk with them.

As the class has been operated for nearly a full semester, the dating course has been the envy of the country's university students.

“Our university should open this course. We, the seniors need this,” Weibo user @Crappy_Designer suggested.

“I know why I'm still single. I did not have this class during university,” @Lishameier commented on Weibo.