撰文者／工商管理學系 三年級 陳柏宏 Bo-Hong Chen

Due to the impact of the pandemic, the orientation for incoming international students this year was shift to online entirely from the very beginning. With less in-person interaction and fewer exchange students, our virtual orientation stressed the importance of the content and therefore developed games to break the ice and encourage more engagement during the whole process.

This year’s virtual orientation included a brief introduction of Taiwan and NTU, a session for international students to know more about each other, and some trivia game time. In the opening, we played the video produced by NTU College of Management “College of Management, National Taiwan University - Where do you see yourself in the future?” and another one from a YouTube channel, Taiwan Bar, which helped us appreciate Taiwan and NTU from different perspectives.

Soon after that, our team from buddy program shared some Taiwanese tourist spots, festivals, delicious foods as well as some trivia about NTU. We also tested their understanding through a gamified online test, Kahoot, where some of them even got all the questions right. In the breakout session, international students got to know more about us and each other through a brief self-introduction. We also taught them some simple Chinese phrases to introduce themselves, and we are really surprised that many of them found it interesting and were so willing to speak up. Finally, we used Gartic (a draw and guess game) and Q&A to wrap up our meeting. We discovered that through these interactive activities, we could facilitate the mutual cultural exchange between NTU students and those from around the globe. 
 

I believe that the highlight of the whole process would be the breakout session. With fewer participants, it means that we also have more time for everyone to speak up. By providing a template for international students to prepare their self-introductions, we get to know more about them in-depth. It’s interesting to hear that there are lots of Taiwanese songs still playing in Singapore and we are also surprised to find out that two exchange students from different countries are actually in the same city in Thailand. We are extremely happy to facilitate such a connection and help build a strong friendship that breaks the boundary.