During every summer holiday or at the start of every\nnew semester, many UM students pack their bags and go abroad for various kinds\nof international exchange activities. Do you want to be one of them? Are you\nready to grab the various exchange opportunities offered by UM? This issue of My UM<\/i> tells you more.<\/p>\n\n
The long summer holiday is a wonderful chance to\nexplore the world. Apart from self-initiated travels, many faculties, departments\nand offices at UM offer international exchange opportunities for UM students to\nenrich their summer life. For instance, the Student Affairs Office (SAO)\norganises a Summer Programme on a regular basis. This summer holiday, SAO\narranged for around 300 students to participate in this exchange programme in\n18 countries and regions, including Europe, the United States, Canada, Japan,\nSouth Korea, Mongolia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China. The Pearl Jubilee\nCollege organised a cultural exchange trip to Taiwan. Participants visited\nresidential colleges, general education centres and local sites of cultural and\nhistorical significance. The Communications Office organised a trip to Taiwan\nfor 20 University PR Student Ambassadors and UM Reporters. Participants visited\nTaiwan University, Chengchi University, Taiwan Normal University and Shih Hsin\nUniversity. They shared experience in guest reception, guiding campus tours, interview\nand news writing with their counterparts at the four universities. Many\nstudents said they had benefited a great deal from the trip and they look forward\nto applying what they have learned to their future work.<\/p>\n\n
In addition to exchange activities that happen\nduring the summer holidays, there is also the Student Exchange Programme organised\nby the Global Affairs Office (GAO). This programme does not only provide\nopportunities for one-semester or one year exchange activities, but also\nshort-term activities such as competitions. Normally, GAO gets busy with the\nstart of each new semester. Take fall semester for instance. In late August or\nearly September, GAO colleagues would organise promotional activities such as\nbriefing sessions and start accepting exchange programme applications for the\nnext semester. The application procedure is usually complete by the end of\nSeptember, and after that various faculties, departments and residential\ncolleges would sort the application data and submit them to the relevant overseas\npartner institutions by the end of November. Upon receiving feedback from the\npartner institutions around the end of December, GAO colleagues will carry out\na series of follow-up work, such as handling applications for exchange funding\nand organising pre-departure briefings. The seemingly complex process actually\nfits in nicely with the university\u2019s wish to carry out education through every\nmeans possible\u2014even just applying for an exchange programme. For instance,\nstudents need to decide which university they wish to go. They need to search\ninformation on the internet, and select universities that best suit their goals\nand ideals. They also need to take care of visa application, transport arrangement,\netc. GAO\u2019s website contains a lot of useful information on this aspect. Check\nout \u201cUM Global i\u201d, which has video clips of international exchange\nopportunities you don\u2019t want to miss, like the Youth Summit.<\/p>\n\n
Annie Chan, functional head of international\nrelations, and Carol Wong, functional head of mainland affairs of GAO, have observed\nthat participants of the exchange programme often become more confident, mature\nand proactive. \u201cTheir changes are noticeable,\u201d Annie and Carol say. \u201cThey knock\non our doors more often because they are now clearer about what they want and\nwhere they want to go in the future.\u201d Annie and Carol say helping students\nbecome more independent is exactly the most important purpose of the programme\nbesides broadening their horizons.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
During every summer holiday or at the start of every new semester, many UM students pack their bags and go abroad for various kinds of international exchange activities. Do you…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":114212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n