Interpreting Campus Culture through Landscape: A Study of Cultural Transmission and Discontinuity among Students at SUSE’s New Campus

University campus culture plays a crucial role in shaping students' values and identities, yet its transmission across campuses and regions is often overlooked. In China, the transmission of campus culture in new campuses is facing challenges due to the prevalence of the multi-campus model and insufficient communication carriers between the old and new campuses, raising concerns about its potential discontinuity and erosion. To explore this issue, this study examines how university students perceive and experience campus culture and its continuity. Adopting a transparent qualitative approach as proposed by Guest et al. and employing Braun and Clarke's reflexive thematic analysis, we conducted in-depth interviews with students from the new campus of Sichuan University of Science and Engineering (SUSE). The findings reveal nuanced patterns in how students interpret, engagewith, and reinterpret campus characteristics, traditions and values.While some cultural elements are embraced and reshaped, others are forgotten or misunderstood, reflecting a dynamic yet fragile process of cultural transmission.The study offers insights into how higher education institutions can better support meaningful cultural continuity through intentional design, communication, and engagement strategies.