Ting Pu will be spending her last year at UBC sealed in a lab, working with the temperamental DNA of fungus. But Pu couldn’t be happier. When she started her undergraduate degree four years ago at Nanjing Forestry University, she never thought she’d get the chance to work in a biology lab.
Pu is one of the first students to take part in the Faculty of Forestry’s UBC and Nanjing Forestry University Undergraduate Exchange Program, launched in 2008. Students spend two years in their home country of China, where they begin a forestry degree, and then finish it at UBC.
Unlike other exchange programs, the Faculty of Forestry connects with the students before they arrive at UBC. Faculty members fly to China to teach courses, hold lectures remotely using live video conferencing, and provide a dedicated staff member to help the cohort of students adjust to Canadian life when they reach British Columbia.
Arriving in British Columbia and jumping into a degree midway can be challenging. All third-year students, domestic and international, start September with a field camp.
“Before coming to British Columbia, I hadn’t seen what a real forest looked like,” said Pu. “But I was excited; I’m the kind of person who wants to see things differently.”
Pu started a degree in Geography Information Systems but was more interested in biology and chemistry. When she saw a poster for the exchange, she thought she’d apply.
“I like forestry because it’s the perfect mix of arts and science,” says Pu, who is among the top students in the class.
“I was blown away by the ability of the Chinese students to adapt to the teaching style at a Canadian university,” says John Innes, dean of the Faculty of Forestry, who worked to get the program started.
Guangyu Wang, director of the Asia Program, says the education systems in Canada and China are very different and it takes two to three months for most students to adjust.
“They struggle with the culture, the language, the environment and what’s expected of them at school,” says Wang. “But the students are strong academically and most end up near the top of their class.”
To make things easier, students come to Vancouver at the end of July to have some time to adjust. The Faculty provides a two-week academic training program and the students participate in UBC’s Jump-Start Program, which offers lectures, classes, workshops and social activities to help prepare international students for university life.
Innes believes the exchange program has been a success. “I wanted the faculty to expand internationally, and I wanted to increase recruitment of undergraduate students.”
“I have a personal interest in making a contribution to how forestry develops in China,” says Innes, who has conducted research on sustainable forest management in China for the last 11 years. The program means that the skills and expertise at UBC are now available to more people and cover more of the globe.
So far fewer than 20 students have participated in the program, but 19 are expected to start in 2011, and 35 in 2012. Universities in China are eager to send more students, but Wang says the faculty will limit the program so that all students get a unique learning experience.
