Summer 2007 – China

Jessica Daily

Why Purdue Maymester in China?

For me, Maymester worked great with my schedule because it took place right after Spring semester, yet I was still able to come back and have an internship for the rest of the summer. Also, for my two weeks I received 2 credit hours that counted towards my technical elective requirements. Surprisingly, there was no language requirement and there were about 30 other Purdue Engineering students that went on the program with me.

 

                

What can you say about your experience?

I had a great two weeks! China Maymester was the perfect opportunity for me to experience Chinese culture. Since I don’t speak any Chinese I would probably never have traveled there on my own. Seeing all the history involved with all the different styles of architecture was amazing. We also got paired up with students from three Universities who showed us around their campuses and discussed what a typical Chinese students’ life was like, and it was very interesting to gain that perspective.

 

What was your living situation?

At each city we visited we stayed in hotels, and we shared rooms with another Purdue student. We were always very close to great night life, and when we were in a city with a partner University we stayed either on or right next to campus. Each hotel was very nice, but also affordable! For meals we ate at the hotels and an assortment of nice restaurants. The style of the meals was to have 12 different dishes brought out which were shared around the table so that we could taste all types of Chinese food.

Where did you travel?

The Maymester included seeing four different cities. We went to Beijing, Harbin, Ningbo and Shanghai. We took short flights to get between the first three cities, and a coach bus took us from Ningbo to Shanghai. At every city except for Beijing we met with students from a local university. We visited the Great Wall of China and the Temple of Heaven. We also toured the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, and a Siberian tiger park. In the evenings organized entertainment ranged from a tea house opera to an acrobatic show. Minimal free time was allotted in which we could explore bargaining at markets or karaoke at Chinese bars.

 

      

Would you recommend China Maymester?

I had an amazing experience, and came back feeling like I had learned so much even though I was only away for two weeks. I would definitely recommend China Maymester to anyone who wants to explore a different culture but may not be ready to commit an entire semester to studying abroad. It really is a once in a lifetime experience.