Han Ximin

ximhan@126.com

The Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) received 93 Chinese international exchange students from the University of Toronto, Korea University, Brandeis University, Rutgers University, and the State University of New York for one-semester of study under the Global Embracement Program.

The program was established in response to the continued impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, which forced many Chinese students who were supposed to study overseas to stay in China. Since its inception in the fall semester of 2020, the Global Embracement program has held three consecutive sessions, hosting nearly 500 Chinese exchange students at SUSTech.

For better and quicker adaptation to the new SUSTech campus, students were invited to the orientation and campus tour organized by SUSTech Global in the morning of September 3.

Dr. Chen Hao, executive deputy director of SUSTech Global introduced the concept that internationalization (I18N) is one of the three pillars of SUSTech. SUSTech has an international campus environment with over 95 percent overseas-experienced faculty, English-instructed curriculum, a bilingual campus and convergent education for international students. SUSTech has established close collaboration with top universities and colleges worldwide such as MIT.

Chen said that as a young university that just celebrated its 10th anniversary, SUSTech has entered the world’s top 200 for the first time in the 2022 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, ranking 9th among Chinese mainland universities, and also has notable achievements in other world university rankings.

International exchange students have the option to take courses in SUSTech according to the requirements of their home universities or based on their own preferences. As usual, exchange students can add and drop courses online as all other SUSTech students do in the first three teaching weeks of the semester.

In addition to the teachers, two students who previously participated in the Global Embracement program were also invited to this orientation. As seniors who exchanged at SUSTech last semester, Qiu Ya from Stony Brook University and Lin Hanxiang from Rutgers University shared their experiences from their perspective as exchange students, and also introduced the similarities and differences between SUSTech and North American universities in terms of curriculum and campus life.