When you see lots of foreign students gather together, under lines of colorful national flags in the building of commerce, preparing to host visitors in their booths and eager to introduce their home country’s university, that means, the NCCUC Partner School Fair is on! On 15th October, exchange students from 22 countries and 49 different universities participated in the fair. The venue was fully occupied by students who were curious or ready to go on an exchange semester. The fair provided thorough information of the partner schools and as a bridge connecting students with representatives from them. To further motivate visitors to explore more booths and exchange information with foreign students, Office of International Program (OIP) designed a game for fulfilling this aim.
Participant got a paper with a world map. After heeding the information of one university, a stick of random color was given and to be stuck on the map according to the location of the university. Regarding the number and color of sticker collected, attractive prizes could be won, including T-shirt, Tote bag and backpacks!
All booths were well equipped with flyers, brochures and some of them even set up laptop showing videos or photos to help local students getting a better picture of the respective universities. Certainly, the most important part was communicating with those representatives. Julie Rufino (盧霏茉), a bachelor degree student from the University of St. Gallen located in Switzerland, shared the courses she thought interesting and would recommend. She further provided information about Buddy Program held by the university which offered a good chance for language exchange and joining local activities and events. She also mentioned about some daily life tips: “The price of grocery in the supermarket in St. Gallen is similar to the Jason’s in Taipei, eating out was very expensive so cooking at home helped saving money. The grocers in Germany is cheaper but you need to drive there. Taking train is possible but transportation expanses in Switzerland is high. Luckily, in St. Gallen, everything is reachable in walking distance.” You could only get this insight information by talking with the local students!
Jade Duquenne (杜可潔), a master program student from the EDHEC Business School in Lille, France explained that if students were interested in finance and management division, EDHEC would be a good choice because of the supreme ranking in both areas. In addition, Lille was located in the region of northern France that bordered Belgium, easy accessed to Paris, Brussels and the Netherlands, students could travel around those gorgeous cities easily. She also shared a France-survival tips because language barrier may be one of the hesitations to live there. Most of people had a misunderstanding that if you could only speak English, it was difficult to survive in France. “When you need to ask for help in English, don’t ask older people but the young ones. Most of them speak good English!” said Jade.
Hopefully through this face-to-face exposition, students could have a deeper understanding of their desire university and swipe away their concerns and doubts of study abroad, prepared themselves to join the internationalize marketplace.
1. The fascinating multicultural environment attracted bunch of visitors.
2. Representatives from the partner school were ready to share and solve any queries.
3. Except information of the partner schools, students could also receive recommendations of the respective countries.
4. Another year of success!
