6. Education Abroad

VTIC31

LANDSCAPES OF CHINA: VT in China 2016 travels across China to far-flung vineyards, studies business, language, and culture

University Libraries invites Dept. of Geography and Pamplin College of Business to team up to tackle the academic challenges at VT’s elite Chinese strategic partner of five years, the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Hefei, Anhui Province, China, for Education Abroad in Summer I, 2016

 

The next info sessions are this coming Wednesday, November 18, at 5:30 and 6:00 PM in Pamplin 2002. The course is open to all majors. If you cannot make it to an info session, please drop by Paul Hover’s office in Newman Library room 100X, or email him or one of the two other Faculty Guides as listed above. Number of participant students is limited to 30-35 for this exceptional learning experience.

Thanks to Brian Craig and the Creative Services Team for the awesome artwork. I owe you one–how about some tea, all the way from China…

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VTIC Julianne at Yellow Mountain

Virginia Tech in China 2015 Summer II Course: July 5–Aug. 12

VTIC CLASSROOM VISITS AND INFORMATION SESSIONS WEEKS OF FEBRUARY 9th–20th

• NEW DEADLINE FOR REGISTRATION: FEB. 25, 2015
• INFO SESSIONS:
o MONDAY FEB. 16, 5—7 pm in room 421 Major Williams
o TUESDAY FEB. 17, all day (9 am—5 pm) in room 100X Newman Library
o FRIDAY FEB. 20, 11 am—1 pm in room 100X Newman Library
• REGISTRATION here.
• COST of the study abroad course here.
• FINANCIAL AID information here.

Travel in CHINA while earning 9 CREDITS in 5½  weeks:

  1. Mandarin Chinese intensive language training taught by specially trained native speakers—3 credits
  2. Chinese culture—hands-on professional instruction covering a broad range of topics—3 credits
  3. Contemporary history of China—taught by Dr. Helen Schneider, VT Professor of History—3 credits
  4. Guaranteed short internships in Chinese businesses and organizations
  5. Excursions to four major cities and extraordinary manmade and natural wonders
  6. You will be enrolled at one of China’s “C9” top-ranked universities

Need help deciding? Listen to VT students who went before you here (scroll down to “Interviews with students of VT in China”).

Please feel free to contact any of the VTIC Faculty Guides as follows:
o Zhange “Nicole” Ni, Assistant Professor, Department of Religion and Culture (nizhange@vt.edu)
o Helen Schneider, Associate Professor, Department of History (hms@vt.edu)
o Paul Hover, Assistant Director for International Outreach, University Libraries (phover@vt.edu)

Kind regards,
Paul

VTIC students at Anhui Radio Broadcasting Corp
VTIC students and USTC faculty at Anhui Radio & TV Broadcasting Corporation

 

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Jin in Oasis

Chinese scholar from USTC (中国科学技术大学) visits VT’s University Libraries

 

Dr. Du Jin, Associate Director in the Instruction Section of the library of the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), studies VT’s “subject specialist” College Librarian  system.

Jin (pronounced “Jean”) graduated from the USTC with a PhD in inorganic chemistry, and now works in the library of her alma mater, one of China’s C9 League of top universities. She’s visiting and studying the library system at Duke University for a semester, and wanted to expand her database with personal interviews with some of VT’s College Librarians. USTC funded her semester-long visit because it is switching to a subject focused instruction and reference system similar to Duke’s and VT’s. I met Jin in 2011 when I visited USTC to establish an education abroad Summer II course for the VT Language and Culture Institute in partnership with VT’s Department of Foreign  Languages and Literatures and the University Libraries, so this visit was one of a continuing collaboration.

Jin’s clear and informative presentation of her beloved USTC and culturally instructive  library practices was enthusiastically applauded by a cross-section of library folks. One interesting thing we share in common is the size and comprehensiveness of the databases they subscribe to, as attested by Ed Lener, our Associate Director for Collections. It was noted that the USTC, as host site of 2 of the 5 Chinese Academy of Sciences laboratories, was in a fortunate position as concerns funding for cutting edge scholarly journals compared to many Chinese universities. Ed was leaning forward in his chair checking the database names… now that’s serious scholarly dedication in action.

Jin also toured many other parts of the library, enjoying the hospitality of many people, for which she made me promise I’d mention her heartfelt thanks. Here’s a copy of her study agenda for future reference: Read more…

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Shanghai Hamburgers

Last Hamburgers in Shanghai

(Pictured sitting at the train station from right to left: Jaime Mac Nabb,  Matt Weinberger, Julianne Dutzer, Jonathan Barrett, and Garrett Hart. Paul’s hat can be seen hanging on the carry-on handle.)

Grabbing a last hamburger in Shanghai Station before bullet-training to the interior.  

The University Libraries partnered with the VT Language and Culture Institute and the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures to establish and run a Virginia Tech Education Abroad program that brought students to the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Hefei, Anhui Province, China, for six weeks of intensive Mandarin Chinese study and internships. Librarian Paul Hover, Assistant Director for International Outreach Initiatives, was Faculty Guide for the Summer II course, titled Virginia Tech in China (VTIC), in the summer of 2012.

Interviews with students of Virginia Tech in China 2012

Three radio interviews, two in English and one in Chinese, were recorded during the final week of the VTIC course. The students tell in their own words what they experienced and learned. The MP3 files are being hosted at the VT University Libraries’ institutional repository VTechWorks and can be heard here: URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10919/18993 Date: 2012-08 .

Here is a link to the “Historypin” photographic odyssey of VTIC 2012, retracing the ground we covered in China in pictures and maps: www.historypin.com/channels/view/35464/#!photos/list/ .

This is an abstract of the MP3 files and a description of the VOICE OF ANHUI, CHINA:Read more…

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lion at Forbidden City1

Email from Beijing

I sent the following email to my education abroad students, who were studying for exams in Hefei, to pump them up for the following week’s excursion to the great city of Beijing.

From: Hover, Paul

Sent: Monday, July 30, 2012 1:56 AM

To: (Students of Virginia Tech in China Summer II Course 2012)

Subject: Preparing our Beijing Excursion: a few notes I entered into my smartphone along the way

Hi all,

Our little hotel is in the most interesting neighborhood I have yet seen in China. It’s extremely hard for taxis to find but I now have a card with a map. The Hutong courtyard neighborhoods are large, historically unchanged compounds of many alleys and narrow passages, crowded with folks hanging out and going about their business. The alleys are a bit narrow and winding here and there, but well-kept, and the low, simple buildings and shops authentically reflect how Beijing was and still is organized. Shopping, restaurants, you can find it all in the Hutong. Immediately adjacent (a 4 minute walk) is a bustling, renovated neighborhood shopping area with lots of small arts & crafts shops (no hustlers except the rickshaw dudes), trendy restaurants and bars, and just an incredibly lively and friendly atmosphere. I met a Spanish lady who speaks Chinese like a Mandarin, hailing a taxi and then flinging a few choice phrases at it as the driver drove on without her. I opened the conversation with her by asking her to repeat the choicest of her fluent harangue. Don’t ask me to teach you that, you’ll have to find your own Spaniard.

In harm’s way

I was caught in a huge rainstorm and completely soaked Friday night after dinner. It was so bad, my umbrella was a joke! I was just at the moment of deluge crossing in the middle of a giant big-city roundabout and traffic was blindly coming at me… fortunately a police car stopped and helped me get across. Imagine that in seconds I went from dry to wading almost up to my knees. So far there have been 77 deaths in Beijing attributed to the recent rains and subsequent flooding, but that was last week, and I wasn’t expecting it still to be happening. Things happen so fast–that’s traveling.

TianNaMen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall

Saturday morning our tour takes us to TianNaMen Square, the astounding Forbidden City, and the Great Wall.Read more…

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