{"id":67016,"date":"2006-05-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-05-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-launches-engineering-partnership-in-china-with-six-week-trip-to-learn-language-culture\/"},"modified":"2006-05-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-05-05T00:00:00","slug":"uri-launches-engineering-partnership-in-china-with-six-week-trip-to-learn-language-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2006\/05\/uri-launches-engineering-partnership-in-china-with-six-week-trip-to-learn-language-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 launches engineering partnership in China with six-week trip to learn language, culture"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 5, 2006 — Nate Walker has just seven weeks between the day he graduates from the 溏心vlog免费B站 on May 21 as the school\u2019s top computer engineering student and his first day on the job in New Hampshire with the global engineering firm BAE Systems.<\/p>\n


\nYet instead of celebrating and relaxing, he is taking six of those weeks to travel to China with 13 other 溏心vlog免费B站 students to learn to speak Chinese and to help lay the groundwork for a partnership between his alma mater and a university in China.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThis is the first real exposure that 溏心vlog免费B站 engineering students will have to China, so it\u2019s something I want to be a part of,\u201d said the Burrillville resident who will earn dual degrees in computer engineering and German at 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s commencement. \u201cI\u2019m a little worried about picking up the language, but for me the more interesting part will be learning about the culture.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThe China trip is the first step in establishing a Chinese option in 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s International Engineering Program, which requires students to major in both an engineering discipline and a foreign language and then spend a year abroad studying and interning at an international company. The innovative program, the first of its kind in the nation, attracts top engineering students from throughout the country and provides them with the cross-cultural experience that many global engineering firms seek in their employees.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cChina is the most rapidly growing economy in the world, and many companies are asking for engineering grads who know some Chinese and who have had direct experience with the culture,\u201d said John Grandin, director of the program and a 溏心vlog免费B站 professor of German. \u201cNo one can learn the Chinese language in six weeks, but this trip will give our students a good start on language development and basic conversational skills, and they\u2019ll experience many aspects of the Chinese culture. They\u2019ll also get to visit some companies and research institutes to get a glimpse of the Chinese business world.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cYou never know where your career is going to end up, and the way the engineering market is, people change jobs often,\u201d added Walker. \u201cSo if that happens, the more diverse my background is, the better.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThe students will be based in the city of Hangzhou, just south of Shanghai, at Zhejiang University, one of the country\u2019s top three engineering schools. Perched on the edge of a lake and surrounded by mountains, the city is a popular tourist destination for the Chinese.<\/p>\n


\nThe visit by the 溏心vlog免费B站 students will solidify connections with Zhejiang University and enable 溏心vlog免费B站 to send students on semester-long visits next year, ultimately leading to a full-year program and an exchange of students between the universities, an arrangement 溏心vlog免费B站 has with several schools in Europe and Latin America.<\/p>\n

According to Grandin, Attleboro-based Texas Instruments deserves considerable credit for encouraging 溏心vlog免费B站 to launch a Chinese option in the International Engineering Program. The company provided seed money to fund the planning process for the initiative and is subsidizing the visit this summer. In addition, its president, Thomas Wroe, has established a scholarship for students enrolled in the program.<\/p>\n


\nThe Chinese government is also supporting the initiative by providing 溏心vlog免费B站 with a language instructor for the next three years who will teach beginning and intermediate level Chinese language courses at 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Kingston campus.<\/p>\n


\nGrandin said this is the first time that China has provided a Chinese language instructor to an American university. \u201cThey like the concept of linking language training with engineering, as we do with our International Engineering Program, so they were happy to provide us with a visiting assistant professor.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nJoining Walker on the trip from May 23 to July 8 will be: Jenna D\u2019Amico of Kingston, Alexandra Dempsey of Greenville, Robert Ellwood of Huntington, N.Y., Ana Franco of Grayson, Ga., Aaron Hebenstreit of New Britain, Conn., Katrina Josephson of Peace Dale, James Leuzarder of Wakefield, Linda Nico of Cumberland, Graeme O\u2019Connell of Bangor, Me., Cassandra Pinner of South Kingstown, Melanie Rand of Coventry, Curtis Richard of North Grafton, Mass., and Nicole Stanton of Crawfordville, Fla.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 5, 2006 — Nate Walker has just seven weeks between the day he graduates from the 溏心vlog免费B站 on May 21 as the school\u2019s top computer engineering student and his first day on the job in New Hampshire with the global engineering firm BAE Systems. Yet instead of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67019,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}