“Most of my impressions at the NUAA have been extremely positive. The university was extremely helpful in arranging my accommodation on campus and the international community here really helped me out. Being an engineering student, my degree requirements are a bit stringent and thus I have had a few issues with course registration. The NUAA has been very helpful in providing me with course information to send back to Carleton, however there were a few issues with the courses I was told were being offered at the NUAA before I came here. Out of the five courses I had planned to take at the NUAA, three were no longer available. However the NUAA was extremely helpful in arranging alternate courses for me and Carleton helped me a lot by advising me as to which ones I should take in order to get credits. The NUAA even arranged some special courses that only I would take so that I could get credits worth a full course load back at Carleton. I ended up with a slight disruption to my degree program and am doing some fourth year engineering electives here instead of some core third year courses and I might have to do a few summer courses or an extra semester at Carleton. Thus engineering students coming from different Ontario institutions to the same institution in Jiangsu should be prepared and willing to go a bit off track from their existing course patterns in order to make the best of the courses being offered here.”

As an exchange student in OJS program, I am very grateful that I got this opportunity. I gain benefits from this experience both in my future career planning and a different life style in a Chinese university.

In the career perspective, I was very lucky that I got a job in Nanjing in a company that prepares exhibition. The company mostly works with foreign brands/companies. My job is to attract companies to come for the exhibition and introduce everything about the exhibition to potential investors. I am mostly responsible for communication between other companies and my own department. Because my background and I am fluent in Chinese and English, I got the position. I also introduced one of my friends from France; she is also an exchange student in Nanjing University, to work for the company. She was responsible for communication with French companies. It is nothing related to my major but it is also about learning the culture.

In the meanwhile, I joined one environmental NGO in China. It is called Friends of Nature (FON).  FON is the oldest environmental non-government organization (NGO) in China, and has played a pivotal role in promoting environmental awareness and protection in Beijing and throughout China as a whole. From this path, I learned about the current situation of environmental protection in China. I promised to help them to get some sources of education about environmental awareness that can be taught in Kindergarten. I think it is also a way to help Chinese people learn about how to protect their environment. This is an opportunity that I got in this exchange experience that does something related to my own major. Started from here, I might be able to be a bridge for Canada and China in some environmental projects.

In the personal perspective, I got to taste a different university life style in China. It is so much different from the one I had in Canada. I met exchange students from all over the world, such as Singapore, France, U.S, Mexico and Korea, etc. We had lots of great times in China. We kept each other's contact information; we will travel to each other's country someday. I met workers in NJU's international exchange department and we became friends. I had an interview with them before I left Nanjing to talk about my exchange experience and give them suggestion and opinions about how to improve their work to better help exchange students in the upcoming term. Such as some tips to help student settle down, arrange activities for students and take care of students' visa, etc.

I strongly suggest promoting OJS in the upcoming future to university students. It is a great opportunity to learn about the culture and also a great opportunity to start a path if anyone who is interested in doing any business or projects with China.