All the IT in China
04 Aug 2016 - 15:26:18 in Achievement
Two ECS students, Amelia Harris and Keanu Holden, recently went on a whirlwind trip to Beijing Jiaotong University in China to attend an IT Summer School. We asked Amelia to share first-hand her impressions of the trip and the intriguing new culture she discovered...
“Beijing was a totally new experience because I had never been overseas before. The trip from the airport to the university was about an hour, so I was able to take in the different landscape that Beijing had to offer. Adapting to the heat was a challenge as the first day reached 37ºC!
Arriving on the Sunday morning gave me time to adjust to my new surroundings before the two-week programme began on Monday. I stayed in an international dorm with people from outside the course. Luckily, my roommate and I met someone who spoke Chinese, and they showed us the best place to find lunch.
The class included 25 people from more than 10 different countries. Our primary focus was to build an Android application which could record and play back sound, which we did using Android Studio.
We usually had class in the morning, and then in the afternoons we’d sometimes go on fieldtrips. For an authentic cultural experience we went to Beijing Shaolin Wushu School, which is a part of the International Kung Fu Federation. Here we watched some students perform and then we were given a quick lesson of “the most basic Kung Fu”, which proved quite difficult for most of us!
We also visited some technology companies including ChinaSoft and Xiaomi, where we were given tours and the chance to test out the different products for sale.
In my free time, I explored Beijing. I visited the Wangfujing snack street, Houhai lake, Sanlitun, and Wudaokou. The weekends consisted of organised day trips where we visited the main tourist attractions including the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and Jingshan Park, the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace.
The whole trip was a very eye-opening experience for me. I learnt a lot from the course and from being immersed in a new and exciting culture.”
For more information and to register your interest for future trips to Beijing Jiaotong University IT Summer School please contact Sharon Gao at xiaoying.gao@ecs.vuw.ac.nz