After over 10,000 miles and 48 hours of travelling, five biomedical scientists from Queen Mary found their way to Nanchang University, China. The School of Biological and Chemical Sciences at QMUL runs a joint undergraduate programme with Nanchang University, and our London-based students went to visit Nanchang as part of a cultural exchange project.
Read about their visit, and watch the video they made to give our students in China a taste of what life is like at our Mile End campus. Many thanks to students Michael Hall, Nicholas Kertesz, Simon Munro, Caitlin O’Brien-Ball and Myfanwy-Cerys Williams for writing this blog post.
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Our trip began with meeting the first year students in Nanchang and introducing ourselves, for them to improve their English language skills, and discuss with them the modules taught by QMUL lecturers. We joined them for a PE class resulting in a tug of war competition, guest captained by QMUL students. This was great fun - only two of us got rope burn.
We spoke to second year students about the summer school, which is available to all Nanchang students and involves a few weeks of study based at QMUL’s Mile End campus. Part of our engagement with the students involved an evening of making dumplings run by the Nanchang students, enabling us to socialise with them, whilst also helping the students with their spoken English.
A key part of our trip involved us giving presentations to the students about studying at QMUL, where the contrasts between the two educational systems were very apparent. The Chinese students seemed very interested to learn how different our lives were in England and the opportunities QMUL offers us such as research projects, extra-curricular activities and career opportunities.
Part of our trip involved gaining a greater appreciation of the local culture by visiting an ancient agricultural village and exploring the vibrant city centre.
Rice wine experiences aside, the trip was a success for everyone involved. We returned to London with the QMUL-Nanchang bonds feeling stronger than ever.
Many thanks to students Michael Hall, Nicholas Kertesz, Simon Munro, Caitlin O’Brien-Ball, Myfanwy-Cerys Williams