My Exchange Experience at University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
the world living on the same floor. We had floor meetings weekly
to discuss about floor affairs, chatted or just played games together.
The residence was a warm place promoting study atmosphere so
LEI Yuewen
there were always a lot of students studying in the common room.
BEngECE, Yr-2
I had meal plan at canteens. The food served there were really
On arrival — Warm Welcome
delicious. It was served as buffet so there were various choices
My exchange tour started in the morning of Aug 16 from Shanghai.
from main entrée to dessert. The only thing I needed to worry
I took the Delta Airline DL18 which flew all the way across the
about was my body weight.
pacific ocean to the other side of the globe and landed , 13 hours
later, at the destination Detroit. After arriving in Detroit, I took
During the whole exchange semester, I had a very healthy and
another flight to Chicago and a coach carried me straight to my
disciplinary life. I got up everyday at seven in the morning and
student residence. These opened the prelude to my exchange life in
went to bed before midnight. After classes everyday, if there were
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).
no party or activities to participate, I would go to the library.
Moreover I went to the gym every fortnight. In fact, I was surprised
On arrival, everything was entirely new and attractive to me.
to find that a large number, if not most of American students, living
I finished the registration and attended a couple of orientation
the same way, which was very different from what I heard before
parties to get myself more prepared for the life there. Although
I went there.
UIUC is known for its academic achievements and innovation in
science and technology development, the extra-curricula activities
Challenges — Language and Studies
and societies there were splendid. During the Quad Day, I signed
Before I went to the US, I thought my English was good enough
up to be a member of Women In Engineering, Chinese Students
to cope with the everyday communication with foreigners, but
and Scholars Association, Yoga Club and Green Help Club. I was
when I started my classes there I found that I had overestimated
really excited and looking forward to the life in UIUC.
my English proficiency. I had no problem in listening to and
understanding what the professors were talking about in class.
Everyday life
However, when it came to the time for expressing my opinions or
In my opinion, the American culture is warm and embracing. I fit in
raiseing questions, I felt that my spoken English was extremely
there immediately after I arrived there, but there is still something
awkward. Moreover, I tended to become nervous while speaking
need to pay attention to.
to an American student, perhaps because they were native speakers
and spoke quickly. Daily talks with American students were not
First and foremost is to respect others culture and political believes.
a problem except when they used some very rare vocabulary or
At the start of the semester, the Quad Day was held for different
slangs. I remembered once I was playing a card game to make
clubs and societies to recruit members. There were associations
up funny sentences, many of the words appeared on the card was
for Chinese students, Hong Kong students and Taiwan students.
entirely new to me, which rang the bell that I need to enlarge my
Also there was even an association for Falun Dafa. I may not agree
pool of vocabularies.
with these groups but I would have to respect others’ opinions and
liberty.
I encountered another language challenge when we had to do
in-class discussion in Engineering Ethics lesson. This was an
I was living in the student dorm room shared by two. I had a
advanced writing class and we had to discuss almost everything
Korean roommate and we communicated using English. Maybe
from engineering ethical cases to philosophy ideologies in ancient
we both came from Asia, we were polite and gentle to each other
Greek and later times. This discussion made me very frustrated.
and we built a good relationship. She was really helpful whenever I
Not only could I not understand some of the abstruse content the
encountered problems. There were around 40 girls from all parts of
American students were talking about, especially the philosophical
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part, but also I was unable to take part in the discussion which
give undergraduate student a chance to get involved in research
was brought about by the failure of understanding. On top of
projects. In this course I was required to read many academic
that, I had trouble in finishing reading and understanding the
papers and browse some books to get familiarized with the
articles which were assigned to me beforehand to prepare for the
background information. After that I needed to write MATLAB
discussion. I found myself largely dwarfed when I listened to other
codes to simulate the transmission line models. I had to meet the
students opinions. Surprising was that they had such profound
professor and his PhD student every week to report and discuss
understanding of philosophy and the world. American students are
about the progress. Although this was a very new style of learning,
nothing like the saying that they are shallow and empty-headed.
I managed to write some programs and have understood the basic
They actually have ample knowledge and indeed think a lot, if not
modeling methodologies.
more than we Chinese students.
Generally, the teaching and learning style there was more
After seeing these weaknesses of mine, I started to improve
like the style I used to have in my high school so there was no
myself. Everyday, I tried to talk to the student sitting next to me.
problem for me to adapt to it. What gave me pressure was that the
In the advanced writing class, I tried my best to read through all
students there were so hardworking and passionate for soaking up
the assigned readings and wrote reflection papers carefully before
knowledge. Every time I went to the library there were students
each class. I thought about possible topics to discuss in class
reading, working on their homework or discussing projects. Once
and stayed after class to ask the professor for help. After going
I stayed in library till 1a.m. and by the time I left, there was still
through all these, I finally passed this course with a fair grade.
considerable number of students working there. This kind of
I really learned a lot from it. I have read articles from Aristotle,
learning atmosphere inspired me a lot and pushed me to study
Kant and Nietzsche. I have gone over some law cases concerning
harder.
engineering ethics from Chernobyl Nuclear leak to the failure of
the Challenger. From my point of view, this was a very helpful
After Semester Travelling
class for me to gain much knowledge on analyzing cases citing
After the semester ended, I went traveling with another exchange
from classic works and published papers and keeping the right
student. We went to Boston, New York, Atlantic City, Washington
writing format.
and Chicago. This was a fantastic trip I will never forget. Along
the way, we met a lot of warm-hearted people who showed us the
A second kind of challenge came from coping with the study
way and offered to give us a lift. We went to see the dream schools
load. The workload there was very heavy. I took 5 courses in
of almost all students — Harvard and MIT. We had saunter in
the semester, meaning that I had to turn in three assignments, 2
the Central Park and lingered in the bustling street amongst the
reflection papers and one progress report, and I needed to read 6
skyscrapers in the Big Apple, and then got trapped in the blizzard.
articles, 3 textbooks and maybe some IEEE papers. As an exchange
Of all the five cities, I love Washington the most. The capital city of
student, I also needed to participate in activities and travel on and
USA is so beautiful and tidy that it looks just like a delicate garden
off campus. All thess made my schedule extremely tight. I had
with friendly and polite people and numerous public museums.
to balance between study and activities, while situation became
We chatted with an interesting cab driver who hated the US and
worse especially before monthly quizzes and tests. To solve this
loved Asian countries, which really surprised us. I think travelling
dilemma, I restricted my leisure time of surfing on the internet
is a great way to meet amazing people and get to know a country.
and acted in accord with the saying “business before pleasure.”
Having talked with a lot of people there, I think America is indeed
After a semester’s time, I thought I was able to accomplish my
the land of freedom filled with warm and kind people.
jobs efficiently.
Summary
In addition to the workload, I took one course called honored
In all, there are so many more things I want to talk about. I have
project which was a very different form of course from those I
seen and learnt a lot. I improved most in the following aspects.
usually had. This course was offered by individual professors to
Firstly, language skills. After four months in the USA, I feel that
Department of Electronic Engineering, City University of Hong Kong
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I am more confident in speaking English and express my views
Student Ambassador Scheme
using English. Secondly, time management. I have become a more
self-disciplined person than I ever was. Thirdly, I find that I am
more capable of dealing with sudden incidents and new things. I
My Experience at Adventure Camp
had to adapt to a whole new life in UIUC and came across with
a lot of small incidents during travel. I eventually solved all the
TSANG Wai Chun, Andrew
problems by using two methods: get prepared beforehand and
BEngIE, Yr-1
never being afraid of asking.
Becoming new student ambassadors, we participated in the first
I cherish my exchange time as a valuable experience which not
activity - the adventure camp held on 12-13 February 2011. In the
only has lightened up my university life but also will lead me to a
activity, the tasks were demanding and exhausting, yet memorable
rosy future.
and gave us many inspirations on our study and the future work as
student ambassadors.
After having some warming-up and grouping at the camp site, we
went to the war-game site to get familiar with the venues where
war-games and night adventure would take place. We were required to draw maps of the war-game site for further uses. As we
were not familiar with each other at the beginning, we did not cooperate with each other or have division of labour, and thus our
efficiency was very low. The situation did not change until we had
evaluation and changed our team work approach.
After having dinner at the camp site, we went back to the wargame site for the night adventure. We were required to walk around
the war-game site to find our blindfolded group mates on our own
in a dark environment, equipped only with a thin light stick and the
map drawn before. No cell phone or torch was allowed to be used
during this adventure. Actually, in such a dark wild area, it is quite
hard for us to stay fearless. Nonetheless, we overcame the fear and
found our group mates. It was really a good experience in which
we made personal breakthrough.
On the second day, we had war-games in the rain. The games became much more difficult because of the slippery and muddy land,
and the bad vision due to humid weather. Yet, these factors did not
put off our desire in winning the match. Finally, given the effective
communication among group-mates throughout the tactic planning
and gaming processes, our group won the games. The game had
shown to us the importance of communication skills and of taking
care of each other. Moreover, we found that it is essential to take
the game seriously so that we could enjoy the game, otherwise you
may miss the inspiration and fun brought by the game.
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