Today is Orientation for new exchange students of the College of Management (CoM). Ever since 2015, the CoM Buddy Program has been hosting this welcoming event for exchange students that come to Taiwan for their new semester of studying. CoM local students voluntarily joined the Program have begun the preparation work in summer in order to not only show the best of National Taiwan University (NTU) and Taiwan to these foreign guests but also help them quickly adapt the new life here.
 

　　The student assistants came to the venue in the morning to prepare and make sure all facilities were fully functional. When it approached the scheduled registration time, international students started to show up. After the registration, they finally got their own NTU student ID cards. Many of them were amazed to hear that the ID card can also be used as an easy card, and that the easy card has so many functions; you can access the MRT and railway system, take a bus, and check out in the convenience store all by this little plastic card. Another thing the foreign students are curious about is the weather in Taiwan. To many, it is just way to hot and humid here. Some of them also asked questions about typhoon, like is it dangerous? Or what do we usually do when a typhoon hits?


 

　　The Orientation later officially started with the host welcoming students to NTU with multilingual greetings. And then the Associate Director of International Affairs, Ms. Celia Yang alphabetically called on country names. When called upon, students from that country would rise and receive applause as a welcoming from all. She also encouraged students to learn how to say “please” (拜託) and “thank you” (謝謝) in Chinese, which will be helpful for living in Taiwan. After Associate Director’s remarks was a series of presentation by NTU Buddies to familiarize exchange students with the school and Taiwan. The presentation is divided into two parts. During the first part, we talked about the history of NTU and CoM, academic information, and campus life. You could see students take pictures or take note of the important information. There was a brief snack break before the second part started. Students took the chance to meet other friends or chat with their Buddies. In the second part, we went a bit deeper and introduced our surrounding Asian neighbors and of course, Taiwan, in hope of letting them know more of our culture. Followed up, Prof. Jiun-Huei Proty Wu brought us a promotion for the International Companions for Learning (ICL) Program which pairs up international students and local students to Skype weekly with kids from mostly remote countryside schools. Students are encouraged to share their homeland culture and experiences with the kids. They even have the chance to go on a field trip and actually meet these children in their school at the end of the semester. Perhaps moved by Prof. Wu’s introduction, many students took the authorization code right away.


 

　　According to the original schedule, there was one more thing left for today—the campus tour. However due to the unstable rainy weather, the tour was made optional. Nevertheless, this did not much reduce students’ curiosity to explore the massive campus where they may spend most of their time in the coming half a year, many of them still chose to stay and took the tour. We strolled across NTU while CoM Buddies introducing those famous attractions of the school, such as the Fu Bell, Royal Palm Boulevard, Drunken Moon Lake, etc., and also acquainted them with various teaching buildings here. Finally, the orientation successfully ended among the laughter of both local students and our foreign friends.

Editor: nternational Affairs