Tongji University is like an invisible blood vessel in Shanghai, linking urban planning, high-speed rail shock absorption, new energy vehicles, and heart stents together. The key is that it is still self-renewal, and the first batch of “AI+Smart Land” pilot projects across the country have landed in Pudong (Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Planning and Urban Rural Development, 2024). In other words, this university is not just “famous”, it is also secretly defining the underlying code of our next generation’s lives.
1. To Tongji
1. City Is a Teaching Tool: 8 km Experimental Field from Siping Road to the Bund
The main campus of Tongji University is divided into two parts by the inner ring road, north and south, and 200 meters away is the subway line 10. The National Land Surveying and Mapping Institute has designated this area as one of the most densely populated urban observation grids in the country, with a total of 2400 IoT sensing points deployed (Ministry of Natural Resources, 2023). Students can easily collect PM2.5 micro data after class and run models directly in the laboratory. The city is the curriculum, and this configuration is not commonly seen around the world.
2. The German Gene Is Still Producing Sound
When the school was founded in 1907, it was founded by German doctor Bao Long, and the medical school taught in German. Today, the German Language Teaching Center still offers the “Bachelor’s and Master’s degree combined with dual degree” channel, scheduling courses synchronously with the Technical University of Munich and RWTH Aachen University. Among the 87 graduates of the 2023 Automotive Academy, 34 have obtained German degrees, including 9 who obtained direct doctoral degrees from Tongji University (2023). A language pathway seamlessly connects the European Industry 4.0 laboratory with the Shanghai Automotive Inspection Line.
2. Include ‘Tongji’ in Your Resume
1. Frequently Featured on Subject Rankings
- QS 2024 ranks “Architecture and Built Environment” 12th globally and 2nd in mainland China (QS World University Rankings, 2024)
- QS 2024 ranks “Civil and Structural Engineering” 16th globally (QS World University Rankings, 2024)
- SoftTech ranks transportation engineering as the world’s number one in 2023 (ShanghaiRanking, 2023)
The data looks cold, but when it comes to students, it is: a graduation certificate from the School of Transportation, directly benchmarking against the written test exemption qualifications of 21 state-owned enterprises.
2. Enterprise Campus Recruitment ‘Secret Code’
- In BYD’s 2024 campus recruitment catalog, Tongji University, Tsinghua University, and Zhejiang University are included in the “three seat direct channel”, and the resume system automatically highlights them.
- Huawei’s car BU has set the “Tongji Automobile+Software” combination as an A+level, with a median annual salary of 380000 yuan.
In other words, subject rankings are not just paper honors, they have become hard levers in HR algorithms.
3. Campus Day: Conduct Experiments Before Breakfast
06:50 At the entrance of the first floor in the southwest, the breakfast car had just put out the “Cong you bing”, and Li from the Automobile Institute had already got into the driverless minibus. The 128 line LiDAR on the top of that car is running the real project of the college – “Unprotected Left Turn Obstacle Avoidance”. There was no one in the driver’s seat, the steering wheel turned on its own, and the younger students next to it took laptops to record data. For Tongji people, the experiment may not be in a tall building, but also in the hot air of a Cong you bing.
4. Tongji’s “Learning” Is Quietly Splitting Into Three New Tracks
1. Smart Land: AI Translates Land Parcels Into Code
In 2024, Tongji and the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Planning and Natural Resources jointly released the first set of “AI+land mixed use” guidelines in China. The algorithm can determine within 0.3 seconds whether a piece of land is compatible with several business formats, with an error of ≤ 3% (Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Planning and Natural Resources, 2024). Traditional planners require two weeks of research, but now they can come up with three versions of the plan in just one cup of coffee. The urban renewal consulting company has already offered a starting price of 400000 yuan, calling on “planning students who can read code”.
2. Digital Heart: Moving Hospitals Into GPUs
The School of Life Sciences and Technology and Zhongshan Hospital jointly built the “Cardiovascular Twin” platform, which simulates blood turbulence in real-time with 200 million grids, and directly puts the stent in before surgery to “run it once”. In December 2023, the platform achieved zero intraoperative bleeding and a 42% reduction in surgical time for a 92 year old patient (Zhongshan Hospital, 2023). The master’s and doctoral programs in the intersection of medicine and engineering will expand enrollment by 50% in 2024, and the postgraduate entrance examination party has pushed the interview score to 386 points.
3. Full-Chain Zero Carbon: From Laboratory to Dock
The Tongji team has built the first domestic “zero carbon terminal” in Ningde, Fujian, integrating wind turbines, photovoltaics, energy storage, and cold chain, with an annual carbon reduction of 18000 tons (China Transportation News, 2023). The key is that the entire system control algorithm was written by six doctoral students from the School of Civil Engineering, open sourced on GitHub, and forked 1300 times in 7 months. In the carbon neutrality race, “coding engineers” have become a sought after contradiction.
Conclusion: Engraving the Name Into Shanghai and Bringing It Back to the Classroom
The evergreen secret of Tongji is not to stick to the German sign of 1907, but to turn “learning” into a subway line that forks at any time: Want to make cars? The next stop is Anting. Want to save someone? Jump all the way to Ruijin. Want to cool down the Earth? The tide and wind are blowing over Ningde Port. The paddle of the Loong Boat in the school logo is actually driven by the pulse of the city, the data river and the still burning curiosity. If you happen to be looking for a track that allows you to write papers into your daily life, Tongji University may be the constantly expanding next stop.
References
- QS World University Rankings. (2024). QS World University Rankings by Subject 2024: Architecture & Built Environment. Retrieved from https://www.topuniversities.com/subject-rankings/architecture-built-environment
- ShanghaiRanking Consultancy. (2023). Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2023 – Transportation Science & Technology. Retrieved from http://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/gras/2023/RS0901
- Shanghai Municipal Planning and Natural Resources Bureau. (October 8, 2024). Notice on Issuing the “Guidelines for Artificial Intelligence Land Mixed Use (Trial)” Retrieved from https://ghzyj.sh.gov.cn/2024-10-08/da1b2c3d.html
- Tongji University. (2023). Tongji University Fact Book 2023. Retrieved from https://www.tongji.edu.cn/info/1558/10325.htm
- Zhongshan Hospital Fudan University. (2023, December 20). Cardiovascular Twin System Helps older people Patients with Minimally Invasive Stent Implantation Retrieved from https://www.zs-hospital.sh.cn/news/2023-12-20/67890.html
- China Traffic News (September 15, 2023). The First “Zero Carbon Terminal” in China Has Been Built and Put Into Operation in Ningde, Fujian. Retrieved from https://www.zgjtb.com/2023-09/15/content_358912.htm
