Continued from: How Did I Get Here?

What were my findings upon further inspection you ask? Well, reader, here’s the tea. The CIEE Communications + Businees + Political Economy is based in Taiwan. Students in this specific program take 15 credits in total. 6 of the credits are from a Chinese class provided by CIEE. The other 9 credits come from regular classes that will be taken at National Chengchi University (NCCU) in Taipei. NCCU offers both English and Chinese taught languages, and since my level of Chinese is not advanced enough to take a whole class in the language, I have to take my classes in English. Now here is where the hard part comes in. Most of the English taught class are in business, communication, and political economy- hence the title of the program. However, I am a boss. I combed through NCCU’s websites and several course listings for several hours to find classes, in English, which catered to my needs. These needs being: two sociology classes, and one Asian studies class that would count toward my certificate. I looked through the course descriptions and syllabi of about 30 classes from NCCU’s last spring semester of which had titles seemingly pertinent to sociology/Asian studies. I eventually ended up choosing 7 classes that I thought I could convince my academic advisers to approve, even though I’d only be taking 3. Of course, all of this class searching and approval was done after I’d already put my deposit down for the program, but once I realized that I’d found a program where I could take Chinese and sociology, I was sold.

{A fun snippet of information on why I was 100% in on this program is that I have a friend that did basically the same thing. Her name is Jess Penn a.k.a Penny. She too is on Pitt’s women’s rugby team and we’ve always been close because we both take Chinese. I told her this is the program I was doing and she basically went bezerk. Instead of doing the business program, Penny did CIEE’s Chinese in Taipei program. Since both programs are pretty small, they clump together the students. Since I told her, Penny has been giving me great advice on people to talk to, packing tips, places to visit, visa information and so much more. I have been super lucky to have a friend that has been on the same trip as me and can tell me the dos and don’ts of everything Taipei.}

Another great thing about this program is that I’m going to have a lot of freedom and free time. Unlike PittMAP, I’m going to be in the same country for the entire duration of the trip). I’m also going to be enrolled at NCCU as an international student, so I will have access to all the happenings (clubs, events, internships) like any other student. I really want to find the nearest hospital to my dorm and try to volunteer there or shadow their doctors. I’m extremely interested in Eastern Asian Medicine, and I think it would be great experience to have while I’m over there. This way I’ll also be able to “keep my vision” and remember that medicine is still what I ultimately want to do.

While I am not utilizing any of these features, some cool things that my program offers are internships or research for credit in place of classes, and home stays. I’m not doing an internship because those are for the students with more advanced Chinese skills. You’d be working for a real Taiwanese company with no language aid, so those skills would need to be on point. I’m not doing research because 1. I didn’t want to make a proposal in the week that I realized I could before it was due and 2. I needed the credits I’d get from taking classes. I’m not doing a home stay for the simple reason of convenience. It would be a great language opportunity, but I think I have plenty of that opportunity staying in one of NCCU’s dorms with the rest of their Chinese speaking students and I avoid all of the problems that would come with living with a family of strangers. Not to say that it isn’t a great option for others. It just wasn’t something that I, personally, was interested in doing for the entire 19 weeks that I will be in Taipei. However, these are all options to look into and consider for this program and any other.

Throughout my stay in Taipei, I’m going to be taking several day/night and weekend trips to places throughout the island with and without my program. I even have to leave Taiwan for a weekend to renew my visa. (woohoo for forced vacations and new destinations) Apparently NCCU also has a CIEE club where people have to interview to get in and are cultural ambassadors (basically forced friends) for us. This program is really just the bomb.com and I love it and am super excited!