Studying Abroad in China

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Posted on February 25, 2014 by Kat Frangos

 As an undergraduate engineering student, you can only learn so much in the classroom.  Exploring learning opportunities off campus is incredibly important.  I chose to escape the grind of mechanical engineering at Purdue and fly off to Shanghai the spring of my junior year.  Let me tell you, deciding to study abroad is easily the best decision that I have made during my time in college.

I spent five and a half months in Shanghai, China as part of the Mechanical Engineering Engineering Term Abroad program the spring semester of 2013.  I flew over there with roughly 40 other junior ME students and we had the adventure of a lifetime.  It is really hard to describe how amazing and impactful this experience was.  There are so many different types of learning that happens while you're abroad.

You will experience...
  • Being a minority in a foreign culture which definitely takes some time to get used to.  It really helps put your view of the world in perspective.
  • Lacking the language skills to effectively communicate.  We used language dictionaries, language phone apps and played many games of charades as we learned to interact with locals.  By the end of the semester, we had a very basic functional understanding of Mandarin Chinese.
  • Assimilating into a completely new culture and beginning to understand why people act the way they do.  Over the course of five months, we transitioned from being confused by people's behaviors to having a small grasp on the cultural reasons behind their actions.
  • Taking classes at a partner university and getting to know local students.  While the overall feel of a university might not feel that different, it's a lot of fun to become friends with the local students.  We had some great adventures with the some Chinese and Korean students.  Some of the Chinese students we got to know are actually at Purdue now, working on their Master's degrees in Mechanical Engineering.
This really only begins to scratch the surface of the experiences gained by studying abroad.  Going to a new country can be pretty intimidating, especially when the culture is so different from your own.  However, having a built-in support system like the other students in the ETA program helps tremendously.  And you have people you can travel with!

So, long story short - studying abroad is an absolutely incredible experience that I highly recommend to enhance your time in college.  Please let me know if you have more questions!

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